Forbidden Zone
by FancyLadySnackCakes
Summary: Backwards telling of friendship, addiction, and violence through the dismembered brain of the Lone Wanderer. FLW/Charon. Contains everything which makes the game M-rated. Short story in-progress.
1. Christmas

I'd figured enough is enough, and then a few weeks ago I started typing away at this, another story with Charon taking co-star. Tweaked it up a bit and put this scattered thing up for Ch. 1 of a story that probably wont exceed more than 3 or 4. Contains acts of sex, violence, and naughty language. The portions are separated and past events are italisized.

Lets see if I still got it...

Disclaimer: No owning of the Fallout.

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><p>Cold wet slips of moisture ran in small rivers down the icy Nuka in her hand; sweating with even more fury than her bang-covered brow. Her sweat was warm, even in the air-conditioned bar, but this sweat – the cold dirty water now brimming over her clasped hand – was anything but. She hadn't even drunken any of it yet, just let the fumes of cold carbonation rise from the neck of the bottle like a steam, and just that in its own right was refreshing.<p>

The last of her caps went to this cola, and damned if she didn't just feel like looking at it a bit more before the fructose ignited the taste buds aching on the tip of her tongue. If she'd really and truly given up purchasing a bed of her own tonight, just to enjoy this beverage, then it might as well have been the best drink known to dying man.

Greasy strands of unwashed hair stuck to the tacky skin of her neck and a vertebra in her spine slipped back into place as she let out a small sneeze. The century-old dust in this place always got to her; crawled in her nose and found a warm blanket inside her sinuses – it was just another thing to be ungrateful for in a place where no one would bother her, where no one would push a knife in her back, where no one cared.

What a luxury; to find things to worry about.

She'd been saddling around – periodically – in Underworld for a couple years now, and the draw, as well as the catch, was that no one gave a shit here. Sure there was peeked interest in the early days; the days when she'd set tongues a'waggin at the old garbes she wore, but the site of her tanned thighs and exposed mid-drift turned into background chatter like everything else in this shit-world. She went from a peep-show to just a regular, but there was enjoyment in that too. The ghouls talked to her now, didn't show her any of their jostled demeanors, nor did they slip over their words any longer. She was – in a sense - an equal now, fit with a few friends, a few good friends, and a regular stool at the Ninth Circle.

Today things were quiet – not that things were exceptionally lively on a daily basis – but the silence was just, more-so.

A muffled snort came from the floor, and she did little more than spare the matted brown creature a glance before dead-panning her eyes back to the frosty cola freezing her fingers.

Meatdog (because he was more akin to a meat shield than a bit o' dog meat) laid by her feet with his sticky snout in a tin can of pork'n'beans; cleaned hours ago by that floppy pink tongue but obviously still smelt good enough to breath out of. He'd been with her a few weeks now – the mangy mutt that could turn on you without the common courtesy of a warning nibble. The tooth puncture in the flesh of her hand was true to that fact. The dog was trouble, but she'd be lying if she'd claimed he hadn't had his moments, and those moments of good were more apparent than the bad, which meant he wasn't breakfast just yet. That being said, he better watch his behavior next time she got peckish.

It was Meatdog's first time in underworld, and yesterday had been eventful – the rotten smiles and the gathering of pets and scritches the beast had received was enough to even make the most-loved and cherished individual envious. The sheer fact that it'd taken until late that night for the thing to snap at one of them was surprising. Poor Tulip, she grimaced at the recollection of the hurt watery glaze the ghoulette had gotten when the beast had all but went from lapping happily at the attention to snapping bared graying teeth at her fingers.

Despite the morose mood the bar was currently brewing – the music at least coming on through the radio was starting to swing in a positive direction.

When her lips opened – the thin skin almost having fused together in such a lifeless state that was due to her 'pondering' - Ahzrukhal decided to slap an elbow before her and begin a series of pained complaints. The more she spoke with him, the more she came to like him…but that likeness wasn't brimming in her gut right now. He was in one of those…moods.

"Do you smell that, smoothskin, it smells like whore breath. Someone's been sucking too many dicks without rinsing out the givings. You wouldn't know about anything like that? Anything like double-talk…like back-stabbings; any ill-will placed in my humble direction?", it wasn't even as if he was speaking to her personally. If she'd been Carol, he probably would have said the same damn thing.

Paranoia was what infected her, and Ahzrukhal's special brand of paranoia-breeding-concoctions were the worst. She'd never seen him puff on the dragon before, but sometimes she speculated he went at it when the going got slow. When he started clicking the near exposed end of a finger bone on the counter she started to get that itch in random places on her body; like little microscopic bugs were pinching her skin.

She'd learned long ago that responding to his crackpot worries only ended up worse for the both of them, but the silence normally meant he'd continue on a rant for a few extra minutes. Either way she'd end up begging for a beer just to get the prickle of nerves to die down, and begging heartily is what she'd end up doing with nothing but dust in her pockets.

"Not enough problems. These people need their own problems – too much time means they start talking out their asses. What have I ever done but supply them with cheap liquor and chems. I cater to their every demand, damnitt."

A long exhale shuddered behind her – from the corner that never seemed unoccupied – mimicking the one that was about to fall from her own lungs. At least she could leave if she'd wanted. Charon was stuck with the man 24/7, and who really knew how many repetitive years it'd been; decades; centuries.

"You'd think gossip whores would leave this old heap'o'bones alone.", he showed no signs of taking a reprieve from his mutterings, so finally, she regaled him with a response.

"Why not take your mind off it?", finally the lip of the bottle met her own bottom one. With a dip of the bottle the cold sugary-sweet liquid flooded her mouth, simmered, and then slid like only an icy beverage could, down her throat.

"Care to gamble?", she asked; her voice less grating now that the cola had moistened her up. When he only frowned - eyes falling to the rim of wetness the bottle of

Nuka had left – she procured a 'hmm' noise to make the question seem more important. She'd always offered up the fantastical idea of him putting that heavily guarded slip of paper in his pocket to a hand of cards with her.

"Did I not just take the last of your caps, smoothskin? What pray-tell would you be able to bet with?"

She sat back straight in her chair, tipping the lip of the bottle to the floor where Meatdog was biting into the –apparently – never ending cavern of the tin can. Smirking when he near laughed, she took another satisfying swig of sweetness before delivering out the best noise money could buy. Delicious.

"What skin I have left, I treasure.", he drolled on melodramatically, but his paranoia seemed to have dwindled, and that was good enough.

"Mind if I share a drink with your other-half then?", she queried, picking up her bottle and swirling around the contents languidly. Ahzrukhal sneered at her term, but the expression held little malice.

It was customary since last Christmas that she had a drink with the bouncer when she visited. The pre-war holiday was a big deal around here, as far as things went for special now-a-days, and everyone had been cheery and sauced when she'd arrived just in time for the surprisingly fun activities. Even Charon had ended up enjoying a rare drink with her (among other things), and somehow she'd found that not only did he have things to say, but that the two of them had more in common than a Supermutant and a Centaur. Bad analogy, but appropriate.

"I'm feeling generous.", it was a lie he spoke, but he branded her with a bottle of dirty water anyways before giving her the cold shoulder.

That smirk she'd given him grew a bit bitter, but none-the-less amused as she swiped the water, her bottle and poked the beast for good measure before meandering to the little table besides the corner.

Charon knew the drill by now. When she sat down and slammed the water beside her, he followed suit and drug the chair out, sitting with a strain to the old metal. It was always entertaining to see how he turned a regular chair into a doll's chair. The man was almost as tall as a Deathclaw.

Normally they didn't talk much; petty talk if they did, and only rarely did they get personal. Ahzrukhal was always listening - not that he was as much the hardass as she'd originally assumed - and besides, being an excuse to get him off his feet for a few minutes was that little bit of good-karma she needed to live with herself on a day to day basis – the sight of him wasn't as bad as others thought either.

Today, Charon was a bit less passive than normal. She watched solemnly - Nuka curled up in her arms across her chest – as he patted his thick thigh, watching Meatdog with those foggy eyes. She expected nothing – the mutt never came when she gestured to it; did what it wanted of it own accord – but with a bit of jealousy (and amusment) she stared as the beast rose on it's front paws with the tin can still muzzling it. His fuzzy, ratty, brown ears did a corkscrew of movement, picking up on the sound before trotting in a near straight line for Charon's thigh. She hated that dog…

"Malnourished.", Charon grunted as his half-shredded fingers plucked the can from Meatdog's snout. Out came the sticky-bean-covered face of the beast; tongue sliding in and out over his lower teeth like a dope; rolling up over its nose and jowls to gathering up the tasty bits of goo it'd missed before.

"Should be more worried about 'the woman' you know…", she muttered, turning eyes from the sight like she'd decided to boycott something extremely evil; Nuka Cola tasting sweet but less cold as she took another heavy swallow.

Charon made that noise she was all too accustom with by now. This particular set of short vocal spasms told her that he was tired, but entertained by her statement.

In the end, Charon had proven to her that he was hard, callous (a killing machine), but innocent in certain areas that made him oddly appealing to a women's needs – though the skinless part was a deal breaker for most. For her – well – she could manage a man without skin if the content of him was solid enough. Even raw and exposed as he was, the ghoul was more intimidating than most Mutant Battlemasters, and even without alcohol he was – for lack of a better description – not ugly. He was interesting, fascinating, and even after all this time she still found it entertaining to just watch him.

She watched innocuously out the corner of her eyes as Charon plucked a scraggly ear between his fingers, tugged, and moved on to rubbing a cleaner patch behind the beasts ear. The mutt looked too happy, almost insultingly happy.

The tilt of her lips was almost turning into a scowl, and would have if she hadn't replaced it to one of neutrality when Charon turned to reach for the water. He drank and she drank, both quiet in the ever wet panting chatter from Meatdog under the table. Never – since Christmas – had their moments of mutual company been awkward, but unbeknownst to her, that uncomfortable fidgeting was starting to attack her left leg; bouncing nervously at the ankle under the table.

A hollow burn gathered beside her face, like that of someone boring a hole in her skull. She turned her eyes to Charon, still tongue deep in a warming cola while he all but stared blankly at her. He'd finished the water it seemed. Must have been thirsty.

"Yes?", she questioned; getting over the oddness of his stare rather quickly by swallowing another bout of the Nuka. In the old days he'd given her plenty of looks like this, which had taken some time to get used to. At first the constant glares were offensive, and then relished, and then…they were, whatever.

"Who smashed your skull in?", he seemed only mildly interested, which was probably why a flicker of ire welled in her throat, but mainly the brief atrophy of her limbs was due to him even noticing such a thing at all.

A few seconds was all it took to shake off the surprise, but her eyes still widened at the dripping sight of the cola on the table. She'd grown out enough fringe to cover the unsightly scar, and only a hard wind could truly expose the jagged cut. Not only did he seem to notice something that even she forgot about for weeks at a time, but he'd never asked her anything personal since Christmas. He was getting personal again.

"It wasn't smashed in.", she answered eventually, and she was prepared to leave it at that when – just as she was filling the mild awkwardness with another swig of her drink – he made a short choke; a small laugh.

Again he spoke; the word carrying open interest for once, "So?"

It was easy to talk to people; easy to relate to them; to follow conversations without a strained vein, but what should have been a rather infantile conversation with Charon was beginning to produce a fine sheen of sweat on her skin. That feeling she'd had trouble getting used to; that emptiness in her skull that'd started to fill up was suddenly draining fast. Her head felt hollow and cold, and the distant memory of spilling Tobar's intestinal lining was repeating itself quite vividly in her mind.

Charon, either figuring she wasn't going to answer or was no longer interested, stood up to resume his post in the corner. He moved fluidly out the side of her eye, and she could see him yes, but the horror she'd felt in that damnable swamp was resurfacing like some dry heave; consuming.

It'd probably been awhile that she sat there, hunched; staring like some dead dope over the near empty Nuka. She was fighting a losing battle, just sitting there like she was; mourning over a chunk of her brain like a sad sap crying over a lost love. The funny thing was that she'd come to terms with it all sooner than one would expect, and honestly, it hadn't really bothered her again until now.

She could hear, almost feel, Charon breathing steadily behind her. The sheer sound of it was making her itch again; making the baby hairs on her arms feel coarse and sharp. With condensed-wet fingers, she rubbed up under the sweaty fringe, feeling along the groove of healed skin; shaken. That hollow burn on the back of her skull said Charon was staring at her once more, and for whatever reason she couldn't stand another second of it.

With stead-fast ability, she scooted back her chair, rose, kicked the dog until it treaded at her heels, and left without pushing her chair back in. Getting out of here as quickly as possible was operation get-go. Get out and go shoot up some med-x, then sleep off the nerves.

As the Ninth Circle door slowly shut behind her, she could hear the sound of a chair being pushed back in place, and a loud huff of breath follow soon after.

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><p><em>Christmas…<em>

"_Laid", she repeated; the word more-like an off-tuned note to a song than anything else._

"_I need to get laid.", she explained, staring into the stringy leftovers of Tulip's cheek as her arm tightened around the ghoulettes shoulder in a half-drunk stupor. At least in the morning she'd forget ever acting like the uncomfortable drunk she always was, and if things really went her way, well, everyone would forget about it as well. The liquor was flowing. Whatever true meaning this Holiday at one point had, it seemed that now these ghouls used it as an excuse to drink themselves stupid, and who was she not to join in on the festivities._

"_Smoothskin…", and the way Tulip spoke her common handle told her the ghoulette was half-way to piss drunk as well, "…to be a smoothskin. I wasted…being meek, my life." It was turning out that Tulip was a sad drunk. _

_She cringed; wrinkling her nose as Tulip stretch out her arm, making a pathetic little squeal as if that fucked up noise expressed everything. To shake off the sudden bleeding-vibe, she took another thick swallow of old-old scotch._

_Tulip wouldn't last long the way she was going. She'd walked in through the better half of the evening and from what Winthrop had told her, they'd all been nursing deadly concoctions since the afternoon. But they could drink more than her, so once she deducted a few equations, she guest-i-mated that they were only a tad more sloshed than she was right now._

_Though it seemed her calculations were a tad off. A few minutes into a steady battle of leg dancing on the counter in Tulips shop proved to be too challenging for the ghoulette. When their conjoined arms pulled the other back on the desk, only one came up, and it wasn't the ghoul._

_Tulip was in a drunken sleep; one that she'd be in herself soon enough, but the night was young enough that she just slid sanguinely off the counter. Pulling one shredded limb back, one forward and another up and over, she got Tulip splayed comfortable enough on her desk. If luck landed in their favors, the ghoulette wouldn't wake up on the floor in the morning._

_The Ninth Circle was alive, but barely. Ahzrukhal was leaned half on the bar; arms crossed as he slurred to two equally doped up customers. The bar wasn't very full, but those that were their seemed adamant about their particular space. Greta was among them, but the one eye the ghoulette had aimed in her direction wasn't the most pleasant of glances. The reaction everyone had been having to her tonight was one of two kinds: delight and loathing. Greta was loathing her, but Ahzrukhal, he was showing delight._

"_What a day to see the glowing smoothskin in all her glory.", even with wet eyes and loose lips – the bartender was almost as sickly smooth as ever. That shit-eating grin of his seemed a permanent resident on his face as well. That grin said – in blaring letters; gaudy and yellow – 'free booze'. A little sweet talk and it may be death by alcohol poisoning after all._

"_Festivities down stairs have cooled considerably, but your party seems…", she would have said lively, but that'd be an open lie, "…seems…", one ghoul passed out; head banging on the table with what looked like an un-opened beer in hand._

"_It's alive, but barely.", he finished for her, eyeing her loose shirt and shorts like some Raider on the prowl for a fucking. The ghoul hadn't given her that look since she'd first met him, but with the alcohol already brimming in her veins, it didn't really bother her that much._

"_Holidays yoo'see.", he muttered; a hand splaying flat on the sticky counter as if that was the only thing keeping him from wobbling. "Holidays. No one celebrates them anymore." Hell they didn't even celebrate them in the Vault. Christmas was still getting caught on the tip of her tongue when she tried to say it._

"_Chris'mas.", she said almost dramatically once she got an eye of the heavy bottle his fingers were reaching for. The vein in her neck tightened when the bottle shuddered at his clumsy hands. If he'd dropped it she may have openly sobbed, but alas his eyes left her and plucked the neck of the bottle easily. It rested down in front of her; golden and rich: the waters of life._

_She wrapped her hand loosely around the bottle, watching as his fingers remained tight around the neck. Ahrzrukhal was tongue waggin'; eyeing her chest in the sleaziest of ways, but a bottle of booze was between them, and self respect didn't fall into this category. She wanted to exploit on this Holiday as best she could._

"_Blow me.", he leered and slurred. The ghoul beside her with half his face in one hand blurted out a laugh – another one at the end of the bar made a small snicker, but he was laughing with his shoulders more than his throat. Sure the joke was funny, but she hadn't gotten along this far by taking comments like this, nor by sucking cock, and definitely not ghoul cock._

_Maliciously she grinned, pressing her stomach into the edge of the counter and ripping the bottle from his grimy fingers once his grip loosened and his eyes trailed down her shirt's hem._

_The laughter only started up again, but her back was already to the counter and her feet dragging her pride fully to a table of any company, of any size or state._

_The only empty table was the one in the corner, though – to be fair – she'd never seen it occupied, even she herself had avoided it for the very reason most everyone else did. Charon didn't look at her when her feet made an awkward change in direction towards him. She wasn't afraid of the mountainous ghoul like the rest, no, but intimidated, probably._

"_Merr'fucking Christmas to'ou too!", Ahrukhal's words were louder than they needed to be in the small bar, but at least some of the words were jumbled up into one and the ordeal was short lived as his gamey mutters started to form a conversation with the others at the bar._

"_Wanna' share?", she tipped the bottle towards the bouncer without truly thinking much about it. He just glanced at the bottle, and then glanced away. _

"_No, I guess you wouldn't.", she stated sourly, pulling up a chair at the table and plopping down – the chair making a terrible whine at the abuse._

_Out the corner of her eye she saw Ahrukhal wave a hand irritably. When the bottle top unscrewed in her palm she eyed the bartender wearily, thinking he was attempting to hassle her again, but his eyes had left her direction and in her own line of sight a large, leather-clad ghoul sat down._

_Being drunk was a luxury that normally she couldn't get away with when outside – it ruined your response time and made things a bit harder to figure out the reasons or whys to certain things, much like now. For a moment she didn't know who this was, or where someone so large had come from. The fact that it could have been the bouncer behind her hadn't really been an option to consider until her eyes ran up to his face. There was that passive – if not a bit annoyed – look staring her down._

_With surprise only sort of registering, she asked, "Can I help you?"_

_He didn't answer, but he did reach over her – the loose leather on his arm almost brushing against her shirt – and dragged the bottle of booze across the table to himself. She watched, almost transfixed and dimly knowing that she wore the worlds worst look, as he tipped the bottle back and chugged a good quarter of it. His throat worked down and up; bobbing with the exposed veins and raw muscle. The Ninth Circle had booze that burned, and just looking at the sight of Charon swallowing greedily such a heavy amount of liquor made the bile rise up in her throat._

_There was another bout of laughter, no doubt at her expense from the bar as her eyes stared wide; following this massive ghoul's movements as he set down the bottle before her casually._

_She looked at the bottle – the muscles between her brow flexing in thought as the why's and how's of things tried to fit. Almost a year had passed and she'd never gotten more than three words out of him…_

_When – peripherally - she saw Charon reach for the bottle again, she forgot about thinking about the why's and how's. She could think tomorrow, and enjoy today. Fuck tallying up past and present reasons for things that in the end didn't matter._

_She swiped at the bottle, aiming a glare at the hand that had already stopped advancing for the bottle, as she took two swallows. The liquor burned on and under her tongue, around her gums and down her throat until it settled like a warm nectar in the pit of her belly._

"_I did say share, you recall?", she warned, but the sight of his partially relaxed glare was enough for her to simper engrossingly. Curiosity was a weak word for what she'd grown in regards to this ghoul, and perhaps with enough liquor he'd say a few more words than the few she already knew. By this time she'd figured that wave from Ahrukhal was permission to enjoy himself at her offer; a rather surprising thing for a bastard like Ahzrukhal to do._

_She hadn't condoned what Charon was to Ahzrukhal, but he'd said that if she didn't have the caps to buy him off then she needn't complain. The worst part was that she never did have more than five hundred caps at a time, which would explain why she was still a regular near a year later, but at least the bouncer did get some time to relax – no matter how little._

_She nudged the bottle over with her index finger, pulling at the skin of her lower lip with her teeth as she watched – almost perversely – as he repeated the same act as before. He didn't swallow as much this time though, but even so the bottle looked half-full when he sat it down. The shame was that he probably wouldn't even get relaxed with just one bottle._

_The bottle didn't take long to drain dry between the two of them. Her tolerance came from starting early in the Vault Reactor rooms with the Tunnel Snakes and sitting too long in that run-off for Moira, but Charon, he was genetically able to down a quantity that could kill her two times over. Regardless of what her rational brain told her – which had been shrinking since this afternoon – she filled a palm with caps and jingled them above her head, calling to Ahzrukhal across the bar._

"_Another, please!", she demanded, but making nice with the bartender – or at least pretending to – with a big grin got him pulling that bottle off the shelf quicker than normal. A curt nod of Ahzrukhal's head was all it took to get Charon up on his feet to fetch it for her; for them._

_When he sat down she tore the cap off without taking her glazed eyes off him._

"_So, color me curious, but how much do I honestly need to spend to get you as bombed as the tiff at the bar?", she gestured with a roll of her eyes to the half conscious ghoul that had stopped listening to Ahzrukhal's speech a few minutes ago. Charon looked in the general direction and shrugged one shoulder. She expected that to be all the answer she got from him, but before she could taste the first innards of the bottle he spoke._

"_I would hold onto your caps if that is your intention.", the flow of words was heavy with misuse. He sounded angry, but by the look he gave the bottle at her lips, she knew better than to think so ignorantly. Somewhere hidden and barely apparent, there lay an accent she'd heard in holotapes down in the Vault. Whatever the accent, it wasn't native to DC._

_She smiled briefly at his words, peeling her eyes off him to take that first swig. _

"_I don't save caps. If I have them I spend them, and what better way to spend them than with company?", her words had started off careless; drunk, happy and careless, but somewhere towards the end she'd let her voice loose that carelessness. If he noticed the change, he didn't say anything – not that she supposed he would have._

_They passed the bottle back and forth – her taking less amounts with each turn and him taking more. She only smiled and his frown only lessened as the contents in the bottle dwindled slowly._

_When she'd gotten him halfway into the third bottle, they were talking rather fluidly, much to the interest at the two conscious eavesdroppers at the bar._

"_Is' not that I don't know how to take out the recoil spring-just not very sah'vvy on putting it back in properly'like. Carbines much easy, less parts, less hassle.", she'd had her pistol sitting on the table for the past minute, talking about the first real kill she'd ever made and how this little guy was part of that past spectacle. _

"_The parts are just larger, smoothskin.", he muttered, taking another swig of the booze before peering almost secretly at the hybrid rifle on her back. "If you can replace the other springs in the grip then the recoil should be simple.", he opened his palm over the table, waiting for the gun to be placed in his hand – he knew better than to pick up another's weapons, if anyone would know weapon courtesy it was probably a ghoul of old age._

"_No doubt.", she said lamely, but the alcohol was working in strange ways tonight, and all that was really on her mind was the sudden fluent know-how coming from the ghoul beside her. She wondered absentmindedly – as she rested her pistol in his large hand – if he'd been waiting to have some semblance of a conversation with her, or if he would have had it with anyone that shared even the smallest of interest. The monotony of every day for him must have been more troublesome that anything the Vault could have pushed her way, and for this she felt a frown pull on her loose lips._

_She watched - eyes half open - as he dismantled her pistol. Despite his thick fingers, he wedged out the small workings in an almost delicate and easy manner. A few pieces he puffed hot breath through, some he scratched out dirt with a soft finger nail, others he set down in neat places on the table._

_When he said something about the recoil spring, she blinked back the cloudy glaze to see him holding up the small fat spring between two fingers. She watched; chin in hand as he pressed the spring in horizontally until it all but disappeared. As quick as a fucking bullet, he slipped the guide right behind it before snapping both in place. The small, and what some would dare call meaningless act, confounded her. _

_Her mouth parted, chin lifted from her palm as she watched him with tentative eyes while he reassembled her pistol in a matter of seconds. When the last part was rigidly in place he cocked the loaded pistol against his chest and aimed down its custom sight across the table. Her mouth was still dumbly open when he rolled the pistol in hand; making sure the barrel was aimed away from her before handing it over. She took it – not being that out of it – but before tucking it back in her belt, she snuck a peak through the sights herself. The damn man was brilliant._

_She muttered a bewildered "thanks" before taking a sip of booze._

"_You have a high tolerance for alcohol.", he made it a statement; eyes watching her, once again passive. He'd looked a bit easier dismantling the gun; more relaxed and comfortable._

"_I'ave'd a few mishaps land in my favor…so far. Wors' part is I spend more, so, perhaps…not favorable after all."_

_He didn't respond, but took another drink when she scooted the bottle towards him._

_They shared some relative silence as the third bottle went like the last two. By the time the main lights in the bar dimmed, and her pip-boy buzzed for the sunrise, her shoulder had been jammed against Charon's bicep for a good half-hour. He wasn't drunk, but his eyes were drooped last time she'd glanced at him, and he hadn't done much but tense slightly when she'd leaned on him after the silence had turned her groggy._

_The small mechanical chime following the buzz of her pip-boy was what had her moving finally. There was a small feeling of drowsiness; as if she'd been asleep for a few moments too long._

_She sat up straight in the chair; a kink in her neck popping when she bowed her shoulders back. The view was still fuzzy, not doubled, but hazy all the same; a drunken haze._

_A snort of breath reminded her of her new friend. He looked annoyed and slightly sauced when she glanced at him, but the whole of his body seemed loose compared to what she'd always been witness to._

"_Wonder how often I ca'hn get Ahzrukhal to let yoo cut loose wit' me.", she stated this while rubbing a finger under one eye; loosening sleepy crusts from her eye lashes. "You're not half bad when you get the stick outta your ass."_

_He ignored her jibe, running a rough palm down his face; blinking back whatever state of inebriation he was feeling_

"_Next year.", he answered. _

"_I'll be here.", his voice was calm, almost depressingly nostalgic in a way. He wasn't looking at her anymore, now taking to the sight of his employer's face planted on the bar's counter, glued by his own drool. She snickered and ran a few fingers through the hair on the side of her scalp._

"_Sure I can sweet talk some off-time for yah'.", she said it as a gesture, even a bit of a joke, but she caught his sneer; forming suddenly while he began rising from the chair. Without thinking – another con to drinking heavily – she grabbed the leather on his arm; wringing the fabric in an unforgiving way. He didn't move – just remained half standing and half sitting; hovering over the chair. How did his knees not buckle?_

_She put her full weight into the act of getting his ass in the seat, and when the victory was hers, she just gaped in an odd fashion at his thin frown. Did anyone handle him like that besides Ahzrukhal and not get the shit smacked out of them? It was a night of too many liberties, and just because he'd had a conversation with him over a couple bottles of booze didn't mean she could just yank him around like this._

_Was he going to kill her for that? God knows she should have paid more attention when Ahzrukhal spoke about his contract._

_The booze was taming some of the worry, but with that little pro came another con; one that ultimately could have gotten her killed if she hadn't ended up on the lucky side of such a devious gamble. She rose – a knee on her chair – and another hand finding his other arm, yanking him clumsily (or maybe yanking herself clumsily) near him. He smelt bitter up close, like acid, old radiation, stale gun-powder, and wet leather. So many comparisons filtered through her thoughts as she gulped down every detail of his peeled-off face._

_Alcohol could also turn situations around rather simply – for good or ill._

_To Charon's credit, he didn't seem as surprised or put-off by her close proximity and studious absorption of his features. He wasn't like Gob, wasn't shy or ashamed of who he was when she just wanted a closer look. If anything the faded look in Charon's eyes was one of challenge, like he was egging her on; daring her to try something more…bold. At this level of intoxication her mind wandered far and wide, and suddenly she grew a smirk that would have melted a weaker man. His name fit in this moment as her thoughts were ferried off to the darkest and dankest of crevices._

_When he exhaled she felt the hot, moist washes of it against her neck; flooding down her shirt until it warmed even her stomach – it reeked of alcohol, but so did hers._

_She thought about how his skin would feel; how it'd feel under her fingers, against her lips, or dampening under her tongue, but her pip-boy chimed once more like a snooze button running rampant again. _

_She watched his eyes shift short and sharp as if he were reading words trailing behind the lens of her eyes, and for all she knew, he was. _

_In the end she knew better than to jump a ghoul; jump a ghoul while sloshed, and she knew even better than to do it with one whose physical body was under ownership of another ghoul snoring just fifteen feet away, but she did – even so meagerly – trace her lips beside his own. So close but... so far – his breath washed over her lips in a hitched vibration._

_Her eye lids fluttered, and a whistle of breath on his ruined lips was – apparently – the last thing she shouldn't have done. _

_A sudden tight batch of fingers curled violently at the base of her skull, tugging back her lips an inch or so from his before her wide eyes saw his mouth curled almost furiously. He looked maniacal, and for a moment she thought she'd triggered some kill-switch just before his mouth shoved over her own roughly. Her balance was lost, her knee stumbled off the chair and her legs buckled to catch her fall, but his dry hard kiss didn't waver. He bruised her lips; never opening his mouth or moving his lips against her own until she finally slapped the side of his face with a loud clap of chapped flesh. _

_She saw his eyes open, and his mouth loosen in retreat at the sting on the side of his face, but that only left him open for her assault and with a shaken breath – her lips curled over his mouth; tongue slipping inside. A shocked grunt passed into her mouth from his own. _

_He should have prepared for all the odds, even this little happen-stance._

_Never had she kissed a ghoul – nor would she have wanted to so furiously until now, but the heightened body temperature she'd found inside him set her tongue on fire when his lips sealed around her slippery muscle. Something about his eager but odd behavior said he wasn't educated on how to do this; everything he did in response to this wasn't like anything she'd received before. _

_He sucked her tongue; bit the side of it when she pressed into the reaches of his mouth and when his tongue moved it was to tease the corner of her mouth rather than battle her own. When her teeth planted a tight bite on his lower lip, he didn't bite back, but simply put his tongue between her teeth, letting her place a bite on that next._

_It was strange, but the alcohol wasn't what had her skin prickling with heat – true, it helped ease this interaction along smoothly, but booze never got her fingers aching against someone else's skin before, or – more precisely – someone's skinless muscles._

_Her kiss was sloppy, but drunken or not it usually was when it was reckless and unprovoked like this one. His lips needed the extra moisture anyways, and just when they were turning soft and plush-like under her suckling and rubbing – he shoved her back; the empty bottle of booze toppling and rolling until it shattered loudly on the floor._

_What could have been? – it flashed through her mind so suddenly and regretfully that she winced more for the loss than the sound of the bottle as it echoed like a fucking nuke in the bar. Charon was between her legs; hands curled up around her shoulder blades and back bent harsh over her one moment, and then the next he was back in his corner just as Ahzrukhal was peeling his face off the counter._

_She rolled – half dazed and hot – onto her side; legs rubbing together interestingly as she witnessed Ahzrukhal throw her a half annoyed and amused look._

"_Too much of a good thing eh', smoothskin?", his voice was raw, but not pained even as he rubbed his face – wincing - like it was starting to swell._

_Her body was twisted awkwardly; one arm trapped under her side and the other splayed on the table white-knuckled. "Yes…?", she spoke, but the uncertainty and lie was obvious enough that anyone sober would have easily picked up on it. Luckily, Ahzrukhal was no where near a sober line – wouldn't cross one for a good few hours - and the only thing he did was eye-direct Charon to her form half lying on the table before meandering to where ever it was he slept during the morning hours._

_A rough hand tugged her up by her arm; pulling her to her feet. To say there wasn't enough alcohol to make this less awkward, was the truest statement facing mankind. Sober – she wouldn't have made eye contact with Charon, especially as he walked her to the door of the bar, but sober she was not and her eyes wouldn't leave his tight face, even as she stumbled over her own feet._

_He was close again, and the embarrassment of the smashed-bottle-incident was fading fast. When she slid against the closed door, her fingers slipped under the tight belts around his chest; pulling herself flushed against him again. He wouldn't bend to her eager lips – pulled back from her advances actually and pried her hands off him with the same thinned expression._

"_The fuck is the matter?", her whisper was hard and annoyed as she battled with his hands until they were rendered useless in his tight grip._

"_This didn't happen, smoothskin. Get in bed. Sleep it off.", he spoke short and quick to her, like she were an unrepressed child and pushed her almost numb hands back to her chest. The soft groan emitting from his chest was the last thing she heard before he pushed her quickly out the door._

_The air outside the bar was cold compared to the heated presence her body had relished in. A heavy bolt latched at her back and she'd been effectively kicked out of the bar with alcohol still running lustfully in her blood; still desire and thoughts of what could have been running amuck. She could have had her ghoul cherry busted if that damned bottle hadn't rolled so fast to the fucking floor._

_Even with frustration following and waiting with each of her childishly loud steps, she did as Charon had said. _

_She indeed slept it off, and upon waking…things didn't really seem all that different._

* * *

><p>Empty bar, empty belly, empty head and empty, empty…empty, nothing.<p>

The table lay cool under her head as she let a cheek squish against its grimy surface. Meatdog panted loudly at his spot on the floor by her right ankle; staring at her with beady brown eyes and a cracked - but very wet – nose. She'd been a regular since the afternoon, playing cards with some residents every half hour or so. She'd gambled her way into a nice handful of caps and with the howling of her belly, it was safe to say food was in order – next beer.

Charon stood motionless behind her; always there and always watching.

When she peered behind her, his eyes darted to a corner in the farthest reaches of the bar. His mannerism was odd. Normally he didn't shy away when caught looking, and never had she seen him look so stern before.

Meatdog whined up at her lazy form; pitting those near-black fucking eyes on her. Sometimes she could have sworn the beast was planting thoughts inside her mind; controlling her for some master plan that involved mass quantities of raw meat and bitches in heat.

The eyes of the ghoul and the dog were enough to get her up on her feet. She bought a few snack cakes and chips from Ahzrukhal, only buying the can of pork'n'beans when the dog whined again pitifully. Charon had been right – the dog was malnourished, but considering the array of bodies she left behind from place to place, he had enough to eat since they'd formed a duo. With a suckle of her lips in thought, she assumed the logical explanation was some mutated version of a tapeworm – the very thought brought up a visual of sharp tiny teeth, rotating and dribbling from a fat wiggling body yards long.

"Still feel like gambling, smoothskin?", Ahrukhal offered; a hand inside a glass like he was cleaning, but she knew better.

She'd mentioned the prospect once more last night before heading to Carol's for her charity bed, but the ghoul had only chuckled and leered maliciously. "Why the change in heart?", she asked; feigning indifference as she tore open one frosty cake, despite the sputtering excitement at the prospect of gambling.

"I've obtained something that's changed my…outlook on things if you will.", he eyed Meatdog as he spoke, as if he were imagining all the deliciously evil things he could conjure up with the rank-furball at his whim.

The frosty cake was overtly sweet and a combination of stale and squishy when she bit into it, still – food was food. She wiped some cream from her mouth with the back of her hand and shrugged; continuing the performance of indifference. "This aforementioned thing is what, pray tell?"

"A slave collar."

She paused in mid-bite. Now that was interesting.

With a few chews and thick swallow, a smirk crept on her face. "I take it my worthy claim behind me is substantial enough to have something of, say, equal value put on the table?" In a way she'd been talking out of her ass, but when that wrinkled slip of paper was slid out of his jacket and placed on the counter, she couldn't take her eyes off it. The echo as it'd slid against his corduroy jacket was still like music to her ears. Something about this screamed shady, but Ahzrukhal wasn't the type to gain trust over a couple years, then pull the carpet out from under someone. If he was going to screw her it would have happened much earlier in their relationship.

A billion scenarios of what could happen once she was new the owner of said little piece of paper and the word – said with infinite ardor - was out of her mouth sooner than her brain could comprehend.

"Deal."

* * *

><p><em>A month earlier…<em>

"_You heard me, you skinned limey; I said go fuck yourself. World might not be giving warning or caution signs before the shit get's rough, but I didn't volunteer for brain surgery! So fuck Calvert, fuck the plan, and fuck you!", she bent a finger painfully into his chest, never feeling so livid; so terrified in her whole life. _

_Her head was missing a valuable part of its composition, perhaps a portion not as important as she'd thought - since she was doing fine without it – but the fact remained clear that someone had gone around digging inside her; inside her head, and the ghoul before her only chastised her about the tender subject. No sympathy; no break._

_A vein bulged in her neck when he merely pushed her offending finger away with a swat._

"_Don't be a worthless cunt. Damage is fucking done and your deal doesn't just end if you piss your pants like a cowardice bitch. Pucker up butter cup.", nothing got to him, and everything he uttered somehow crawled under her skin like some burrowing parasite._

_She had half a mind to just blow his brains out; help out his enemy for shits and giggles, maybe come back and defile his corpse a little for good measure, but whether the radical shift from pure hate was due to her brain loss, well, she'd rather blame the brain loss part for just deciding to fuck rather than fight._

_The tension between them for this sort of activity had been there all along. He didn't mention it – to proud and totally spiteful for that. She - stuck with the image of another rough individual to act upon it._

_A combination of dead-fear and anger was what eventually set the ball rolling, at least on her part. Maybe Desmond just liked his women to hate him beyond the point of killing him when he got to fuck them over a couch, which is where they ended up when she knocked the coffee table over after socking him in the jaw._

_There was nothing emotional; nothing even intimate about it, which was almost funny since the act required a certain amount of intimacy to complete, but the uncoordinated and heavy fumbling to remove the appropriate clothing was anything but friendly. _

_Her pants ended up at her knees; binding them close when he assaulted within her. Despite her bare ass and his unbuckled pants, she was fully clothed, and there was something about sex with most of her clothes on that felt…distant._

_The couch skidded, even with his one foot bracing on the floor as he banged ruthlessly inside her. His thrusts were short, dry and hard. The little lubrication she had didn't make his ragged skin glide inside her any better than calluses did on tight fabric – but he worked through it and so did she. They weren't in this for pleasantries really. She needed the distraction, even if it was with pain involved, and who knew why he was as eager as she to do such a deviant thing. If anything, she figured the more unsatisfying this was the better._

_Somewhere, she'd always assumed caving in and fucking a ghoul would get rid of the curiosity, and when finally, after what felt like hours, she came – the feeling as terrible as it was good - she decided it wasn't all she'd built it up to be. Desmond finished inside her without any warning; it fit for him to do such a thing, but when he started up again – now slippery with his fluids – she almost choked on the fingers she shoved in her own mouth._

_Needless to say her curiosity for ghouls didn't die that night – or more precisely, for a certain ghoul currently hundreds of miles away - and after a couple hours of hateful rutting on that putrid couch, she did indeed hold up her end of the agreement. _

_The last time she saw Desmond was with Calvert's brain on the floor. In the moment before she left he said nothing; just smirked and twirled the end of his mustache like some cocky little-shit while she swallowed her pride and asked for a good-bye fuck. The past day and night – missing a portion of brain and sleeping off and on with a man she loathed – had forced some sort of dependency not there before. She needed a distraction; a release from the emptiness._

_When he said she really wasn't his type they both laughed, even if hers was a bit more-bitter than his. _

_That early morning when she boarded the Dutchess, after she took a switch blade to the soft lower portion of Tobar's belly; spilling the tight ropes of purple guts, her eyes fell to a desk with a sole syringe of med-x. The nine hours it took to reach DC, she did nothing but shoot up the pre-war drug; procuring more from her bag that would have normally been sold off._

_Her missing friend – a jar housing the oddly tiny chunk of her brain swimming in green fluids – sat between her legs the whole time. Her mind never wandered and worry never consumed her. Nerves turned into gooey dribbling currents of contentment, and it was then that she developed her small addiction to the narcotic. If she couldn't find a release in alcohol, sex, or immoral violence…then a thimble full of old world medical psycho would fill the gap._

* * *

><p>Review if you find the time. For a writer, they are comparable to the Lone Wanderer and her Med-x addiction. Thank you reading regardless.<p> 


	2. Waste Poker

Second installment. Have some more titilating moments flesh out for later chapters. Enevitable sexual acts almost surley coming in the next chapter. For now, enjoy this one.

Don't own Fallout. (you'll like it either way)

* * *

><p>The trick to cards, especially with highs stakes on the line, was not thinking about said-stakes. Forgetting that there were even winnings at the end of the game was – at times – the only way to end with the victorious hand; the only way to let the fate of the cards have their way. Forcing the ideal of casual competition usually granted her a few extra wins.<p>

She'd played enough cards to feign a new level of boredom with each draw from the deck. A good player knew how to order out the cards in their hand – give off the impression of a certain hand when in truth the chaos of the cards was only certain to the person holding them.

The game was waste poker - three winning hands took all.

As if to prove something to her, Ahzrukhal had positioned the scuffed slave collar besides his elbow on the table – it was worn to hell, but the red light (divided like a glowing honeycomb) was still glowing strong since he'd pressed the 'on' button twenty minutes ago – it worked. The ghoul must have assumed it'd rile her up, but the only thing distracting her eye from the game was the old-downy scrap of paper between them; so frayed at the edges and pocked with small holes that for a second she forgot the cards to try and calculate how old the slave to that paper truly was. Whatever had been inked into the paper was now soaked and blurred by old water stains; unreadable.

She'd taken up the smooth movements and calm conscious that only med-x could offer before heading up to the bar, and the only thing better than the intense blanket of peace was the twitch of Ahzrukhal's upper lip when ever he peeped at her. Her calm was his worry, and that – as well – was another trick to winning the game. She'd never seen him play cards before, and that really was his only advantage. He knew how she played (had watched her many times with his customers) and luckily for him, his tactics were as hidden as the flesh under his clothes.

Regardless of who had the pros and who had the cons, they were even; square. One hand was hers and another was his.

There was no crowd around them; no outside support for her or for him. The bar was empty and in all honesty, this was the time where Ahzrukhal slept and when she hoped he allowed Charon to sleep as well. It was just Meatdog kicking in slumber under the table, the two of them at the table, and Charon standing in the same place he was always in; eyes either on them or closed. Only once did that hollow burn scratch at the back of her neck, but that seemed eons ago. With her back to him – it was like he wasn't even there.

Ahzrukhal caught her attention with a none-so-subtle stretch of his lips, "I told myself last night I wouldn't ask you what you plan to do with him, if you somehow win of course…", he muttered and shuffled the cards in his hands; displacing them in some semblance of order, "…but curiosity is a terror when it's not satiated.", he paused and she frowned without thought.

"Your point being?", exuding boredom in the quick spoken question, she thumbed another card from the deck; tucking it in her hand.

"I have a few theories, but…", he traded a card for another from the deck and grinned with both sets of brown teeth glistening in the yellow lights above their heads, "…they're just…theories.", he said that word like it was some weapon; a tactically smoldering car like a ticking time-bomb behind her.

Whatever he had to say behind that rotten row of molars and canines – it couldn't be good, but with her own baring smile she made eye contact; waiting with fingers supporting her cards tightly.

"My main theory, the one that doesn't make wild assumptions, is that…maybe you've let your self go." His cards folded over every other one in his hand as he took a swill of beer; a breath of satisfaction echoing after he set the bottle back down. "The feared Lone Wanderer - letting herself get…squishy in Underworld."

He was goading her; something she should have expected from him, if not sooner than now. It would be asking too much for a quite game with him; however, if his tell was to begin a series of jabs aimed at coaxing her…

She smiled – teeth gone – as he scratched a rough thumb against the blade of a one moldy card. He looked to be enjoying himself, but the smile on his face seemed too large and too wide, even for a slippery snake such as himself. It was funny – no matter how distasteful he could be, she almost found it flattering on him.

Ahzrukhal continued, "Or, could it be? - that all this time hanging around us ghouls, you've developed a small…fetish for us. Imagine what the radio would say if it assumed what I assume."

Best scenario would have been to ignore him and play her hand; call his bluff and add a second win to the mental score-board, but since the day she'd found the gift of comprehension, she'd always made the right choices in her head, never though did they reenact themselves through her physical actions.

"Are you jealous, thinking of the sexually deviant things I plan to do to your employer?", her voice – laced with malice and sadistic excitement – not only got a stiff reaction from the ghoul before her, but that hollow burn started to flow along the back of her head; hot as the fucking sun.

The peak of his reaction is what she waited for. When he started regaining that foolish shit-eating grin, she composed one of her own and laid her cards down like she were playing some old organ; each card slapping like a key on the table.

Barely brown eyes (covered in a coat of milky white) glanced down at her cards, frowned and let out a ghastly little chuckle, "Do you really want to fuck us, smoothskin?"

He was beginning to act deliberately crude; leering and turning up what was left of his nose to expose his top row of teeth as if he could smell her somehow. It was shameful to even admit it to herself, but his cheap talk was making her skin prickle as if he were letting off heaps of radiation.

"Or maybe, you have already.", he didn't make it a question, and suddenly a ball of saliva appeared at the back of her throat from nowhere. "If a ghoul cock feels better than a smooth one, do spread the word. It gets lonely you know."

She swallowed – the noise must have been audible, for he chuckled once more; gurgled and oh-so very satisfied.

"Lucky hand I suppose", the pleasure in his voice was still apparent when he let his cards drop on the table; a very bad hand indeed. She'd figured the sudden fountain of conversation was a tell, and despite the nervous cyclone in her gut, she felt the side of her mouth curl as he sashayed the cards into a hapless pile. He shuffled them clumsily; giving away just how long it'd been since he'd done something like this.

Victory seemed so sure that the sudden bubbling anticipation could only be baited back down by a few thick breaths to and from her nostrils. She wanted that piece of paper, almost more than the ghoul that came with it in this moment; wanted to fold it slowly while Ahzrukhal watched; wanted to tuck it in between the cup of her bra and her wind-burnt skin with her own imitation of his greasy fucking smile.

* * *

><p><em>One year and seven months ago...<em>

"_Don't you dare speak to me right now.", she bit out; cheeks still hot and upper lip still damp._

_The taste of the broken ground was still sitting on the back of her tongue, just as apparent as the warm fluids leaking down between her legs. Still the flesh inside her felt torn, even if it had been half an hour since Jericho had taken what she'd offered in exchange for his help._

_She'd killed too many people; too many that probably weren't as evil as her vault-washed morals had assumed. Out here in the wasteland things weren't black and white like everything was back in the vault. She grew up with rules, laws and schedules – the breaking of any of those three, punishable. A bad name had already found itself on her head, and Jericho was the only one eager to watch her back, but only under one condition._

_The raw memory of him crushing his weight over her; thrusting inside her with hot breath and prickly stubble etching on her forehead was making her knees buckle every few steps. He'd been rough and unforgiving after he'd heard her confession of not being as green as he'd thought about sexual matters. The nasty smirk he'd grown at hearing of her awkward activities in the Vault had, in retrospect, been a bad idea. He must have thought that knowledge meant something different, but her lack of virginity hadn't meant she'd been used to the quick and violent rutting of an ex-raider, whom was probably used to rape than actual consensual sex – that thought still made her stomach knot._

_Despite what ever her naiveté had assumed intimacy with him meant, she found that agreeing had been easy. She'd agreed to many things that she'd never followed through with before; in and out of the Vault, assuming – she figured – that nothing would come of it. Empty words apparently didn't exist out here._

_Her wake-up call couldn't have come any sooner, and in a way Jericho had taught her a lesson without setting her on fire and having her for supper. The brief pounding had been terrible, but if this was the way things went; if her morals needed to askew further to one side than the next to survive, then that's how things would be. Trading pleasurless-sex for protection wasn't even close to the worst pact she'd heard of._

"_Yeah, yeah. I get the routine. Take your time if yah' need ta' cry over a little spilt milk.", he manage to come up with words that started off almost cordial, then the rest of it was spewed up quick enough that he managed a hideous laugh at his own innuendo. The only thing more unattractive than his face was his voice – the serrated smoker's cough that almost made it into each and every ignorant word he spewed out._

"_You fucking prick.", she muttered against a sudden small sand storm. She just needed to forget about self-respect until she could make it to DC. _

"_I'll give you some prick. No problem, but lets keep your panties on 'till we get through to the Metro.", his voice was near lost in the sand smacking their faces._

_Perhaps Galaxy New's Radio had less despicable people she could con into escorting her about the place, but that in itself seemed unlikely. No one in this world seemed eager to do one nice thing for another. If pussy or caps weren't put up in return, nothing got done for the fellow-man; for the fellow-woman especially. But in the end her predicament was her own doing. Her frightened mind was to busy leaning on her trigger finger around every damned corner to think twice on who it was she was pumping full of lead._

_If second chances were ever granted upon her, there were a few things she would have done differently already, but thinking about such things now only served to ruin the mood her anger of Jericho had bred. Hate and disgust were oddly promising emotions._

_The orange sediment whisking around their bodies took a drastic turn, slapping the clothing around her body; infiltrating the tight confines about her legs and chest. Sand seemed to seep everywhere and rub the flesh it touched raw; burning her with briary friction._

_Thicker and fatter it seemed to grow; light dimming until the slabs of fallen buildings turned into dark outlines; whom only hung around like they were encasing the two of them in some uncanny version of a Vault. _

_She couldn't see much more than four feet in front of her; four feet of growing worry . Sounds, that could have just as well been monstrous things as it could have been the howling wind, screamed in her sand-filled ears. A call of hard wind squeezed through a towering building, screaming like a dying man._

_The sand was too harsh, and even though fear of what was among the unknown still materialized like some incurable virus, she closed a palm over each eye. Palpable, was the terror. Growing, were the howls, and then suddenly...the wind changed direction. Sand gushed hard at her back and right side, ignoring her face for the unprotected skin of her neck._

_Granules of sand clustered in the corner of her eyes, but upon opening them, the scene had changed enough to witness the (what she'd assumed before to be no more than part of the rubble around her) brown, amorphous shapes growing larger in the distance. Suddenly the itching causing her eyes to dribble didn't seem so bothersome – the sand was no longer a concern. All attention zoned in on the hefty creatures stumbling on thick legs towards her. Two large beings whose very existence caused her to wake early each night - just the stories of what they'd done to others had instigated her sleep loss for the first few weeks after her first tale from Moira. These beings inhabited DC, but that little fact was another thing her brain had ignored completely, much like the reasons why Jericho had agreed to come along at all._

"_Mutants...", the word felt bleed out of her. _

_The only thing more terrifying than watching the green hue of their skin break through from the orange clouds, was turning around – ice in her veins – and seeing no one there but the short stretch of dilapidated highway, which now consisted of nothingness. There was no Jericho, no sack of weapons to which she'd given him the anserine duty of carrying, and the same could not be said for when she looked back ahead of her._

_Her soles felt part of the ruined cement; unmoving as the twenty yards distance between her and gruesome death turned into fifteen, and ten and soon…five. The time in between then and now was an odd thing to describe, in fact, the feeling seemed to have come and gone almost instantly, yet their process from just silhouettes to now very solid entities had not been instant at all. She'd had plenty of time to flee; to hide behind some century weathered car, but something that was stronger than fear kept her as motionless as the stagnant buildings enclosing her._

_The sandstorm was still churning thickly; sweeping in varying degrees of density like drapes in the wind, but through the sand they had either seen her or smelt her, either way they took pause just ten feet away._

_She didn't move; hoping above all that they were like the ancient dinosaurs she'd enjoyed reading on about so fondly as a young child. _

_The breath in her lungs came in and out so slow and short that the pressure began increasing in her head like a pair of pliers squeezing her lobes, and all the while the two huge, olive humanoids stood tall with makeshift weapons gripped tight in their heavy fists._

_Through the whirling sand – loud as any heavy machinery she'd winced against in the Vault – a sound similar to speech but more comparable to an unintelligible roar broke through. In it's growls she could hear words, but those two words vanished from her memory; saving her from pissing herself when her motor functions decided that running was a better course of action._

_In seconds she swiveled on her heel; turning a full one-eighty, and began a run that she'd only known of, but never actually had to do. Apparently though, the amateur gallop was no where near fast enough to outrun a dedicated Super Mutant. Her long hair was what was her downfall. _

_Fingers the size of Microfusion Cells curled inside the unwashed ends of her hair; gripping and yanking hard enough that a scream ripped from her mouth without her brain even thinking about it – it was a reflex, along with the other countless screams she graced the wasteland with._

_Rape came to her mind so suddenly and fiercely that the two words her brain had forced forgetfulness on came back like a kick in the face. Her eyes stung, her throat felt raw from the screams, and where ever their big hands groped she could feel her bones and tendons grinding collectively like the sound of a crushing water bottle._

_They didn't even need to press her into the ground to keep her stable. Between the two of them, all her limbs were sealed from free movement and her waist twisted enough that even breathing was pulling pain through her nerves._

_Drool from toothy mouths which she could barely see, dribbled on her, leaking past her thin clothes and making the skin below soft and slimy. _

_She screamed again – the sound starting to run out of volume; sounding more akin to a dying choke._

_Those two words again came out from the mouths above her "lone...female", but the sand was filling her eyes; obstructing her view of the one with the smaller eyes and the wider mouth that had both her arms twisted at the elbow over her head and behind her back._

_Already the pain was becoming unbearable, and things hadn't even escalated yet – that very ideal sent a new fountain of desperate wails from her throat, and fresh gooey tears from her eyes._

_Suddenly her arms were set free; her body immediately struggling with the aid of her new found freedoms, but the rending of her shirt brought up a slew of terrorific images that had her flailing with no real decisive movement. When her upper body (bare and red from the sudden onslaught of sand) lay easy under a lone callous-sharpened hand – a deafening explosion went off to her left. The blast sending wind sweeping into her stomach and her hair, in her open mouth and eyes._

_Four seconds later, another explosion triggered a few yards from the last; closer._

_When the third explosion threw small points of shrapnel on her and the two Mutants, she was dropped flat on the broken ground – the wind escaping her lungs as the drop brought a cracking noise from her spine over an arching cut of concrete._

_Even with one leg going numb, she crawled with eyes dangerously wide and alert, away from the sudden change in attention the Mutants had. The sand storm was lessening quickly. Hiding was all she could think of with the crippling of her lower back._

_Shots rung out; shotgun shells, and dimly she was aware that Jericho hadn't truly left her, or perhaps he'd returned when he'd heard her sickening screams._

_As the yells, grunts, and shots continued to echo off the walls, she drug herself inside an open building - the interior was exposed to the elements, but a half broken portion of wall was intact enough on one side that it covered her near prone form. A window – or what had once been an opening fit for a window – allowed her a small view of the dilapidated block, but only when she craned her head to the side, which seemed to bring a tight bundle of pain mid-spine._

_Heavy foot -falls ran close, but her body remained still and ridged. To her fear-soaked brain – a single wrong breath would forfeit her position. _

_Even when the telltale sound of Jericho's grunts became loud and un-ignorable, she remained steady. The sound of smacking metal and crunching bone didn't turn her neck either. Another shot – close and undeniably loud – made her whole body jolt and slowly...turn._

_The top of her head peered out over the open window of the wall. The sand was thin, but the wind was strong and all her eyes could register was that Jericho was...missing a leg._

_The sight was so sick, morbid and nauseating that her eyes remained locked on the sight of one bleeding Mutant as it tore the ex-raider's severed leg in half above it's head; relishing in the blood that flew down on it's face. Bones cracked and tendons ripped in echoes of wet flesh flapping in the air._

_Jericho was down; minus one leg and making these soft noises that pulled up all the guilt her autonomic-possessed body hadn't entertained until now. Her eyes ran over the scene as quickly as the wind started to turn once more. Her hair swept up and over the top of her scalp, which was probably what caught the beady eyes of the Mutant._

_Paralyzing fear caught her again, and even though it'd been her mistake the first time, it still gripped her against that wall and probably would have kept her there until her death, but a final shot ripped from a prone Jericho; a shot that caught the mutant in the side of the head in an act of luck that would never be believed after by a third party._

_When the thick green body – broken and full of buck shot gouges – finally fell, it collapsed on what was left of Jericho's lower body, minus the side of it's skull._

_Minutes must have gone by that all she did was stare ahead at the sight of her companion and the dead Mutant; he was as still as the creature atop him. Minutes went by that she counted each of her breaths, and strained her eyes to see if his chest moved as hers did; if he was still alive. Minutes went by and that nag of not knowing (never being sure) just grew and grew until finally she rose and crept out the window, stepping over bits of wrought iron and slabs of concrete – the pain in her spine no longer her biggest concern._

_Jericho was lying in the open road – the Mutant on top him covering the fact that he was missing a limb, but he was most definitely alive. A pained sneer seemed to breathe anew on his face with every hard breath he took._

_It was while looking at a broken faced Jericho, that she uttered the lamest word she could have, given the situation before her, "…hey…"_

_His eyes rolled up towards her, as if he hadn't noticed her shadow covering him for the last minute. A strange tilt of his lips formed, like a smile but bloody and busted…and not at all happy. A gurgle came out of his mouth that would have at one point been a replying 'hey'._

_A moment passed between them and as she bent down to her knees – hands hesitating on a limp arm – she ran her eyes over the disarray of his body. There was blood everywhere, but amongst the blood and the dirt, she knew that not all of it was his. He'd saved her; saved her from a death that may have been all too common out here, but…she was alive…_

_When she looked down at him – his eyes on her own – he must have seen the question in her gaze._

_His mouth trembled, but never once did she think the sight of it was weak-looking, not with that strange tilted smile on his face, "…'sider it…con...ssolation. Did better…bye'oo…did better by…you…than most.", blood stained his teeth when he spoke and something inside her rippled with despair._

"_Oh my god.", she muttered._

_Hatred was all she'd felt for this man, and honestly – it was still the strongest emotion she held for him. She didn't even try to move the Mutant from him, knowing full well already that it would only do more harm than good; cause him more pain, and if anything she could spare him that much._

_He was pulling in small hard breathes; chest barely moving under the leather armor that was smeared with blood; paste-like from the sand that continued to fly steadily around them._

_She watched; head down and eyes still as wide and scared as they'd been when she'd seen his leg snapped like some rotten tree branch. His arms were twitching softly, but despite the jerks each movement of his arms brought – the shotgun at his side found its way over his ribs and beside one of her dusty shoes._

_For a second she almost laughed; a morose and desperate sort of giggle, but only because in this moment she realized the irony in this situation. She – dressed down in a sweater, jeans, and running shoes – was cowardly and alive. Him? – he was decked out in thick armor; weapon in hand, brave, and yet he was dying, and all because she just stood still as the Mutants slowly approached her. He didn't have to come back…and probably shouldn't have. _

_What was the life of one girl who couldn't even run from an enemy? What could a girl like that do to give his death any meaning?_

_A splat of blood – coughed from his mouth like a sputtering bubble from a radiation ditch – pulled her from the sudden decent into madness. She was hyperventilating, but the lack of oxygen only seemed to make everything sharper. The look in his eyes she understood, the quivering of the side of his lip she wanted to end, and when the barrel of his gun hit against the ball of her ankle, she gulped down the dryness in her throat._

"…_need balls in…'tis place gurrl…", already his voice was getting drowned in the blood bleeding inside him. She knew enough about medicine that if she let him linger, his death would be slow and painful. In this moment she couldn't think of a worse way to die; choking on your own blood - how warm and frightful it would be._

"_Shoot..t…me.", through the blood he almost begged her, but she couldn't image him begging for anything – so her brain took it as a demand and obediently she grabbed the heavy gun._

"…_shhoot.", and at the blood that started to rise in the back of his throat – the sight of it so dark and menacing (like some evil fiend coming to get her) – she did as she'd seen him do, cocked the gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger._

_She'd slammed her eyes shut at the recoil, but it was too late – the sight of his head rupturing in pieces of soggy chunks would never go away…would never be forgotten._

"_Oh my god.", she bit out; eyes still shut tight as tears leaked from the seams._

"_Oh'my god…"_

_Loneliness, she soon found, was what she feared the most._

* * *

><p>Ahzrukhal's fingers loosely piled cuts of cards on top of one another (some tumbling back on the table). He was barely keeping an eye on the cards, let alone both, instead he was watching her with his scabbed-over head down; eyes stretched up at her passionately. In honesty – the mind tricks he played were actually having an effect.<p>

That prickly feeling one got outside – without cover, without protection…without company – was starting to fill up her stomach like a batch of bad eggs.

Along with Ahzrukhal's flippant yet intense gaze, there was also that hollow hot-itch on her back, which wasn't doing her anymore good than the milky stare in front of her.

It would do no good to turn around and pin the bouncer with a glare of her own – she knew - but whether it was Ahzrukhal's intention to get her short-tempered or not, she craned her neck around regardless. Charon was gazing down at her; face dead-ahead but eyes turned in their boney rimmed sockets right on her.

He looked almost...worried; arms crossed and body as straight as the wall behind him, giving off an air of uncertainty that she could smell from a kilometer away. Something about the smallest bend of his eye-lids made the fine hairs on her arms stand on edge. When a frown just happened to find it's way on her face, Ahzrukhal cleared his throat; a warning of words to come…

"His height and size doesn't guarantee the same for where it counts, smoothskin; a trick of the eye...if you will.", the words were quiet, hard and almost bitter, but what struck her as odd was the way he spoke not to her, but to the ghoul at her back.

"You don't say.", she replied; bored and tired.

The only thing to calm the beast currently wakening in Ahzrukhal's throat was to respond accordingly. He'd yet to ever use this annoying behavior against her before – it was something she'd always witness from the bar or from a table with Charon, yet now, it was thrown on her like an overused washcloth. She knew exactly how to counteract his tactics, but...that didn't stop the edginess from remaining strong; a part of his game from lingering.

"Commanding him around for your perverse sexual needs won't work, you are aware?", his tone turned casual and easy as he dished out their hands with a raspy lick of his thumb.

She hummed – lips a bit too tight – in understanding; dragging her hand across the table near her chest as he continued.

"He was bred for combat, trained for combat, and unless you've wrapped him around that dirty finger of yours, I wouldn't put your cards on him servicing you otherwise.", the shit-eating grin on his face returned, almost making her wonder if he'd tried something a little similar with Charon, and the end results weren't really as he'd hoped. Something in his tone of voice spoke of experience, but as to what that meant, she still couldn't figure.

"I can service myself just fine, thank you.", under the unease she managed a small smile; amusing and perhaps a bit insidious.

While Ahzrukhal's eyes ran down her body for the barest of seconds, she ordered her cards in her hand, letting her previous smile widen while she drew up another card.

The next eight minutes went by slowly – the bar feeling as thou it'd grew four degrees warmer. Her hand remained lame, and with each card she traded – a worse one took its place. It began to feel as though the constant gaze burning on the back of her neck was actually making her start to sweat. When her eyes ran over the three visible ac vents – the ropes of torn fabric were whisking heartily against the onslaught of cool air. If anything the sight of the working units and the growing sheen of moisture on her forehead, only made the heat feel more smouldering as she placed her cards on the table.

She lost – score two to two.

The loser shuffled the cards, and if anything the mindless act eased the nerves quite well. Sometimes, alone and with not a sole to speak with, she'd shuffle a deck of cards in the light of a dying fire; she'd practice solo card tricks from a half destroyed paper back she'd found long ago. The monotonous act was suppose to give her mind something to focus on; something to distract her from all the endless problems and worries of the single moment, and as it helped her then – on all those lonely nights – it helped her now to forget the stakes at the end of this hand.

She dished out the cards, laid the stack between them and stared her cards down.

* * *

><p><em>Three weeks and five days after DC...<em>

_Jericho's shotgun cocked easier in her hands than it had the last time. _

_With every day things were getting…easier. Killing was less bothersome and guilty than it had been. Lying and cheating her way through everything from gambling to simple conversation was almost second nature by now. Within a month's time, scouring the wastelands was already becoming familiar in a way. The homesickness was ebbing in a sort of strange knockoff of pride; a knockoff that was part due to what Jericho had given her in life and in death and the other part? - purely her. _

_She was in a way, everything she'd cowered from when she'd first met the inhabitants of this world, but now – staring down a group of raiders, some still sitting down on their mattresses – she knew this was the only way to survive out here. She had to take what she wanted, ignore what didn't kill her and kill those that tried._

_There were four men and one woman – the woman only notable because of one breast exposed over a thick blood-stained blanket, her face was too filthy to tell in the end which sex she belonged to._

_These animals would have raped and murdered her if they'd found her first, but as luck were it was her to sniff them out sooner. In the end she would give them a kinder death. _

_They were half clothed, weapons maybe only a foot away but far enough that she'd get the drop on a few before the warm metal could meet their fingers – the rest? Well raiders, she'd found out, spent their nights mindlessly attached to plungers and needles._

_Those that had the luck to grasp their weapons probably didn't have the reflexes to aim them…_

_Talking to them was a waste as well. They spoke in a dialect that sullied anything with a working set of vocal cords. Expletives were already verbalized under stale breath as she took a steady step inside the roofless-but-still-rancid home. In effect – she'd caught them with their pants down. She didn't have time to do good things anymore, she'd tried a couple times with little success, but now, this was all the good she could manage – kill them all._

_Wiping out these walking bombs was the only way to amend herself of the old man she'd robbed yesterday - a good deed to cancel out a bad one._

_The rancid smell of countless bodily fluids seemed to mash themselves together into one single entity; permeating the confines of the home like some visceral mist. These beings before her were rolling in their own muck; rutting, eating, and sleeping where rotting corpses lay chained into the hard, blood-crusted dirt. It wasn't hard to flip her head back, let the old arch welding helmet slap a sable mask over her face, before pulling the trigger on her first kill._

_A single shot in the stomach – with the spread of the buck – must have killed the first instantly. Two men rose from one mattress, one naked but holding a glock in hand, he was the next to go; half a shoulder shredded, crippling him._

_Pump, shoot, dead. _

_The movement of her hands over the shotgun was simple, almost smooth with each prepared shot and discharge. Those that weren't dead before hitting the ground didn't last long. Three more lay with the first one – the sole woman among them; brains blown in a fan of gore and skull fragments against the wall and floor of the house._

_The lone survivor was only vaguely aware of what had happened; only bleakly conscious of his dead comrades before him. Two steps closer – blood soaking into the soles of her boots – she saw the psycho syringe still inside his arm; poking under the flesh in a blaze of yellow and purple._

_She stared at the raiders face, but only momentarily – the smell of the fresh blood in combination with the houses previous aroma was beginning to bring her last meal up to the surface, and above all she wanted to taste fresh air. The man looking up at her – one eye only partly open – seemed no older than her, but the sun-burnt flesh, yellow teeth, and knife-shaven face cut through that illusion of youth rather easily._

_Absentmindedly, she motioned her shotgun before his eyes, watching as the closed one opened; the act looking oddly difficult. Still, even with a weapon in his face, he looked doped and relaxed; not a bone in him moving or shaking._

_"Guess that stuffs pretty nice.", she spoke as if she were speaking to herself, which really, would be no different than now. His lips moved lightly, a breath coming out, and it was then she realized it was the first time since approaching him that she'd seen his chest expand. Her eyes roamed to find two more empty batches of the drug, and all it took was putting two and two together to realize he probably wouldn't last much longer. In moments, he'd stop breathing...and that would be that._

_In the end she needed the ammo more than she needed to be reassured of his bloody death._

_He was heavy, but she grabbed his arm all the same and dragged him from his seat against an old crate. As he slumped; falling to the floor on his back with a small exhale of breath, she hoisted her shotgun over her shoulder, looking down at him solemnly._

_When she raised her boot, and gradually lowered it over the raider's throat, she realized his eyes were green. His eyes opened, not fully, but more than before as she placed more and more of her weight on his soft neck; crushing his trachea. Meager noises managed to slip past the sole of her boot, coming out of his mouth in a plea possibly, or a curse._

_Eventually his sight seemed to falter, taking on that thick shine that dead-eyes always seemed to manifest. It was a quiet, un-fussy death._

_She watched him for only a moment later; blood stinging her nostrils and that creeping sense of wrong taking hold of her again, despite how she rationalized that this was right. If anything she'd put them all out of their misery; saved lives by killing them less-brutally as they killed others. Still though, something felt morally wrong...something she'd have to rectify soon enough._

* * *

><p>Meatdog kicked a leg against her foot, reminding her of his existence once more – that reminder now drawing her attention to the slave collar at Ahzrukhal's elbow. Her eyes skimmed the piece of paper – the contract – beside the deck of cards as well; gripping her attention just before a ghastly little hum erupted from the throat of the ghoul before her.<p>

Drumming her tongue against the side of her mouth; drawing a card to replace the old, she shot Ahzrukhal a seedy little glare of her own.

A sudden rattled above their heads proceeded a gush of cooled air; stale and smelling a bit like wet dog, but it dried up the sweat brimming on her brow. For the next three minutes the AC chilled her hot body to the bone, making the tips of her fingers numb as they whitened on the grip around her cards.

"If your plans don't revolved around a rotten dicking, then what exactly do you have in mind for an existence with my employee?", his cards were risen over his mouth, blocking off the view from what could have been another tell, but his eyes were slanted and brow ridge raised. The sight was almost note worthy, but she let the image fade from memory to instead smile and shift her cards once more.

"You'd find me less interesting if I told you such a thing, Ahzrukhal.", she said his name slow and languid-like, grinning near-maniacally as if she had some big fucking scheme to carry out once this game was won. In truth, she had no plans. Her father was dead and the thought of pining over his two-decade old project like the good ol' doctor, was about as sickening as bloatfly meat. If anything she craved discovery; an adventure, but adventures were of little enjoyment when you couldn't bask in the glory with a friend, and the mutt wasn't much company in that regards.

"At the moment I may find you too interesting, smoothskin, be good to have a reason to dislike you right now.", he mumbled and gave out a sudden huff of breath before folding his cards into a short stack underneath his chin. "What do you say about a couple drinks before the winner's declared? I'd like the taste of some scotch in my mouth when I see the look on your face."

She arched a brow under her bangs, watching him place his hand of cards on the table before beckoning from his chair to the bar; a strange gait in his walk.

"You'll need the liquor when I swipe that contract out from under your grubby fingers.", she piped in – the sound of glasses chinking together and sweet intoxicating liquid sloshing forth – as she kicked her chair back with a leg bent to her chest. Tricking her mind with her own casual body position sounded like a ridiculous notion, but it'd worked for her in the past. If anything the act of tranquility was as much for him as it was for her.

"Whats the poison of the hour, smoothskin?"

Her shoulder bowed at his question, while her fingers plucked her cards around in different orders; acting as though she were considering the pros and cons of which decrepit bottle to request.

"Nuka and vodka I'mmm'thinkin'", she slapped her tongue on the roof of her mouth, ignoring the ghoul behind the bar as she boisterously ordered her cards around; elbows bending and shoulders jostling as a little safety shimmied down her sleeve into her curved palm. Another trick to cards was never allowing yourself a chance to loose, even if less-than-honest measures had to be taken. If Charon had seen the little cheat, he didn't disclose that knowledge to Ahzrukhal.

By now she was a master as this little illusion, besides, she had an inkling Ahzrukhal had given in to the old 'generosity' gambit just to do as she was doing right now. No one else would put it past the grumpy bastard to swindle someone at cards – in fact, that was the reason she'd heard as to why no one played cards with him anymore.

With two to two and her recent dealings of cards saying no more that 'dead-hand', she couldn't let him dish her an underhanded loss like she was some stupid kid anymore.

'Ferry home' went her two of spades and 'welcome baby' came an ace of hearts; tucked neat and safe between two pairs - it wasn't a sure hand, but from the cajoling and small little tells along the way, she figured it was better than the shit he had sitting in the small stack in front of her. That contract was hers.

A barely brown drink was set carelessly at her forearm; spilling a good one/third of it's contents over the table top. She looked at the sticky mess, eyes up as Ahzrukhal sat down, almost letting go a grumble at the incredibly smug smile on his face – it wasn't flattering in the slightest.

"Thanks", she muttered, but forced a smile and took a hardy swill anyways. The bite of the drink burned between each of her teeth; sterilizing her mouth like a fire peeling away the paint on an old family home. She must have made a face at the sweet-less taste, for Ahzrukhal sniggered through his nose like a little Lamp-lighter playing an immature trick on her.

"Down that puppy so we can finish this. Past my bedtime.", he said this all through rancid smiling teeth; a feat she thought infeasible until now.

Never taking her eyes off his molted ones, she finished off the hard fluid as if it were a foe she'd face only with a straight face – it went down about as easily as a slab of grilled human hamstring.

With the sting and heat still running in a very noticeable trail down her esophagus and into her belly, she exposed her cards; eyes watering mildly from the vodka that tasted more like turpentine than anything distilled.

The discomfort already bubbling in her gut was worth the drastic shift in the decayed face ahead of her – he looked none to happy.

"Let's see your cards Ahzrukhal...", her voice was almost embarrassingly rough from the drink, but nothing could take the almost painfully wide grin off her face...all expect a bullet maybe. Seeing the boiling rage ascending behind his eyes was better than most sex she'd had, and the trembling of his fingers around his falling cards was better than even the best sex she'd ever had – this was her real addiction; winning. Whether she won by surviving the odds, a conversation, a trade, or a two-faced game of cards, she found this moment to be on par with a dose of med-x, even an orgasm to some extent.

He didn't put his cards down, just let them fall out his curling fingers; shaking and fidgeting like he was about to burst with confining pressure – and who was she to sit by silently at his fury?

"Perhaps you ought to finish 'your' drink, Ahzrukhal." her tone was nothing but berating; worse than his own earlier while he'd spoken of sex and perversion. She wasn't about to let the chance pass her by to rub her face in his defeat – the moment was just too toothsome to ignore.

"Bitch", he griped; hands still unfurling and furling in the air beneath his chin while she reached across the table, fingers aimed for the contract that had been the sole of her desires for far to long, and the gaping, infuriated ghoul currently cursing hotly didn't stop her.

The pads of two fingers had only been on the soft scrap of paper for no longer than two seconds before the sudden flush of metal sliding on metal had the hairs on the back of her neck standing straight as nails. The air went cold, then hot, and then displaced like only high traveling lead had the power to deliver. Behind her still rung the sudden blast of buck-shot as the front of her body was showered in a spray of tepid, viscous blood.

There was a moment in the short seconds - when Ahzrukhal had a head, and when he didn't - that she wondered why she'd decided to wear her favorite sweater today.

The sudden splatter of hot, thick fluid was – at first – not the least bit surprising, but as the seconds drug on and she realized that the half obliterated head before her had at one point been whole, her stomach dropped.

A squashed part of what could have been a ruddy eyeball leaked over a hand of disarrayed cards, almost floating in a pond of blood.

Her eyes had been too busy surveying the scene; processing it at a mile an hour – the body of Ahzrukhal slowly slumping forward with flaps of skin and leaking arteries bouncing between his shoulders as his chest hit the side of the table – and only when a globule of rancid blood slid like a crawling insect down the side of her cheek did she swipe it away and grate her chair around to face the ghoul at her back.

He was there – shotgun looking warm in both his hands – as his face looked on in a tight and determined manner, as if he expected the headless, chilling corpse to rise, needing to be double-tapped down any second.

She stared with eyes wide, but her surprise barely lingered and soon, disappeared all together as she turned to look at the still dead-gored body; her eyes catching a blood pool that grew dangerously close to the contract under her fingers. As the glistening dark puddle expanded, she drug her fingers – contract with it – towards her. Things may have taken a slightly different route than the grumpy-Ahzrukhal-bitching she'd expected, but...

"Was that necessary?", she whispered; feeling an odd sense of loss over a friend, even if said friend lied through his teeth with every breath and smelt like brahmin shit; even if in his last moments alive he looked as though he'd wanted nothing more than to rip her heart out, gobble it up and then spit it back inside her chest for good measure.

"He'd lived long enough.", that was Charon's response; a response to the bloodshed drying on her body, and a part of her itched for him to reiterate on that, but the sight of the ruined meat and crusty pieces of skull was making her tired and sick.

In the confines of the bar – the smell of death had little places to escape.

In a silent act of goodbye, she smiled lightly at the corpse, rising from her chair as its legs screeched loudly against the floor. Ahzrukhal had lay pity on her more than once; given her discounts and free beers when the rare emotion of generosity struck him, and anyone like that in this world deserved a moment of silence...even though she'd had half a mind once or twice to do just as Charon had done. There was a lot she'd never know about, and surly she saw the dolled-up part of him while Charon had seen the worst – though she won his contract fair and square (fair being an exaggeration, and square just a blatant lie) but having him at her back suddenly sounded less safe than she'd once thought.

"Suppose I should watch my manners with you after all.", it was spoken to herself, not to him, but he responded with a solemn grunt that could have been amusement as much as indifference. Suddenly things took on a heady quality as her fingers fumbled to fold the contact into a small little square. The lights felt like they'd lost their uncanny yellow glow when her right knee started to buckle. The smell – almost instantaneously – became overtly sour and thick in her nostrils.

The contract made it between her breast and the cup of her stolen bra, but only just barely. Old drug up memories of howling mutants and unexpected bravery was overloading her senses. Every other second or so, her mind conjured up the image of Jericho's headless body in place of Ahzrukhal's, and with it brought the shame and the guilt of actually being alive; of feeling anything but worthy of someone as outcast as an old ex-raider dying for her. If she'd won the game fairly, would Ahzrukhal still be a heap of death on his own table top? - probably, but...

She'd only passed out once after leaving the Vault, and it'd been over something much worse than this – at least she thought it'd been worse – but unfortunately there was little she could do now about the situation.

Whether she hit the floor or not, she wasn't sure, but the darkness crept from the corner of her eyes as slowly and quickly as a batch of clouds covering the sun. What was funny, aside from actually fainting, was that she wondered if this moment – with her being the new bearer of Charon's contract and all – was akin to a first impression, and if it was, then...what an impression she must make...

* * *

><p>"<em>Your not the type to even ask about what just happened, are you?"<em>

"_Don't flatter yourself, even if you were some untainted wench calling out the name of her mantee while I fucked her sad little brains out, I'm not the jealous type.", his normally snark-stuffed words were light even if the content of them wasn't._

_One of his hands drug roughly down her naked hip; thumb rubbing under the jut of her hip bone while a steady vibration emitted from his throat; the sound of satisfaction. He was eying the downy space between her legs , stroking her skin and being oddly quiet. If he'd planned on prepping her up for more, he would find her quite disappointing._

"_Mantee?", she was completely baffled by the word, but like most of the slang he uttered, she barely bothered to decode it. "You damned limey...", her eyes found him; an amused smile curling his mustache upwards in a view that just annoyed her._

"_Nothing wrong with enjoying a little tossing with the same sex, but when I bend you over again I want my name being yelled, at least once, and I don't like asking twice.", his hand grasped her hips, pulling her worn out body over his lap from it's near prone position along the couch. He was still partly clothed; shirt half undone and pants all but lost. But her nakedness gluing pleasantly to his scratchy hide didn't quell the sudden irritation – she was albeit, confused._

"_I'm not a dyke, Desmond.", she said with hands wringing on his shoulders. He only looked up at her with a half smirk as she felt a telltale organ rising between her legs._

"_I don't fucking care, kid. Say what you like any other time, but say my name this time.", the last half he spoke into the side of her neck; hands rocking her back and forth over his hardening flesh._

"_Charon - it's not a girls name you know.", her want to argue with him was fading, even if the flesh he was stimulating felt raw and sore._

"_Allegorical or dame-name, I told you, I don't fucking care.", he grumbled, grabbed her hips hard and slid himself inside her with a combined bite to her collar. She hissed. There was no arguing – he knew as well as he'd ever, and who or whatever Allegorical meant, she couldn't care when he was doing what he did best besides berate her. As long as he took away the hollowness inside her body, he could do as he pleased, say as he pleased, demand as he pleased – and she'd try to say his name from now on._

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><p>Thank you all for reading, as always. Hope those that happened by (without reviewing) enjoyed, and for those that have the time, do review - it means the world to know what I did right and what I did wrong. <p>


	3. MedX

This chapters a bit longer than the previous ones, but, I hope you all don't mind that too much.

I have managed to get this chapter finished tonight with one hand (ran into some issues with a jammed window and ended up handicaped for the next week or two). The next chapter may come about a little less quickly, but I have been working on pieces of it off and on, so perhaps we wont have much of a delay. Enjoy this one with an extra thousand words until the next bit of woe and wonder. Please do - if you have the time - review.

Don't own Fallout. Have fun regardless.

* * *

><p>The one thing disgusting about stabilizing a water-to-salt homeostasis in the sweltering, wasteland sun, was sweating without means to an end – the kind of sweat that stopped being just a few wet areas here or there, and started creating a wet sheath over every inch of skin. In the mid-day rays – the only way to dry off was to, oddly enough, dunk under a pond of irradiated water. The radiation reacted against skin and heat, evaporating and cooling in the process for a good hour or so, but the last time she did that was four hours ago, and even as the sun was beginning to fall over the ruins of DC, she was still left dribbling against the shaded overhang of an unsound turnpike.<p>

Her clothes felt heavy, moist and worst of all – itchy. If modesty was no longer in fashion, she may have peeled her pants off without a care, but alas, something about the idea seemed a bit forward.

Charon, however, seemed to have no problem with the heat. He stood a good ten feet away in the dimming rays as if the temperature wasn't bubbling high on her Pipboy; the meter dinging repetitively in warning. Out in the wastes, she liked to have the clunky device on; a measure of safety and comfort. Radiation spikes could crop up without warning, and in the most unexpected of places – not to mention it was easy to get lost when the sun cut out much of the view above – it truly was a blinding day.

As the minutes went by, a growing disdain for the almost content look on the ghoul's face - reflecting off the light without a single shimmer of dampness – was surfacing. Just a little bead of moisture on his partially intact brow would have satisfied her jealousy, but with each passing second under the sun he remained dry as the dirt under her ass.

Even after the near two years she'd spent with ghouls, she hadn't thought how to ask certain questions, especially about bodily functions. Would it be offensive to ask physiological questions pertaining to their differences with smoothskins like herself? - or would it be best to just fume silently by as the salty sweat tickled in skinny rivulets down her neck and arms?

In the end, she didn't have the willpower to remain silent, especially now that – regardless of his possible offense - he couldn't really fuss too much if the query hit a tender spot.

"Does any amount of heat affect you anymore?", she spoke easily, but the last word left her dizzy; panting quietly from the heat.

"Not anymore.", his reply was simple, much like the countless others he had in response to her previous questions. He hadn't talked to her like they had back in Underworld since the last time she'd shared a drink with him; five days ago. The constant silence was starting to dispirit her, and regretfully, she turned to Meatdog for companionship, "Nice not to sweat right? I could go for that slobbery tongue – wouldn't be swimming in my own juices right now.", she only paused a second to inwardly flinch at her words; leaving a bitter tang in her mouth.

The mutt's ears rotated at her voice; eyes shifting around inside his fuzzy brown sockets to stare up at her from his reclined position at her stretched legs. In another place, another time, and another life, she may have called the sight of his fine-dusted fur endearing.

Sometimes she imagined that the dog knew what she spoke of; understood, but – for his own perverse entertainment – ignored her as well, and looked on in boredom before closing his eyes.

She snorted through her nose, taking a chug from a dust-covered water bottle, "Couldn't imagine you trapezeing around all soggy, day in and day out." - it wasn't the first time she'd talked to the beast, and by the looks of the ghoul staring out over the horizon (ignoring her as easy as the dog had just done), it wouldn't be the last.

In a way it bothered her that even now she was left conversing with herself; passing the time with idle mind games like she'd done all by her lonesome, but then – looking at it another way – it was startlingly comfortable. Old habits – ingrained practicably – were almost more of a comfort now than they'd ever been.

Another stream of sweat slipped down the slope of her face, cooling only for a second before leaving her skin warm and pulsating. When rising; legs shifting and arms rotating to pop a shoulder blade – the fabric of her clothes made a horrendous 'squishing' noise. Fresh (or correction; stale) sweat oozed down her thighs and under her arms, making what had been a barely bearable situation...unbearable.

She didn't groan at the feel of warm wetness, but she did crush the now empty water bottle under her boot before rousing Meatdog with a rough jab; gesturing a hand for Charon to follow as she muttered pettishly, "Maybe the sun with roast us all before I die of boredom - wouldn't that be lucky."

Behind her was simply a tight, ghoulish grunt.

* * *

><p>With the sun a quarter way behind the hills, they'd stationed on top an old gas station; previously used as a camp, but the scattered remains of coal and broken beer bottles suggested it'd been awhile since the last hermit had wasted himself on the dusty concrete.<p>

A mountain crept up behind the building, acting as a natural fortification with just a one-eighty degree expanse to watch during their shifts – in essence, it the was the perfect vantage point for the rotation of a two person watch.

Meatdog had slumped on his side; matted legs splayed out and kicking every few moments as a vivid dream caught up inside his small, canine brain. She'd glanced from the mutt to Charon's combat knife a few times while they'd set out the sleeping mats and lantern; thinking that giving the dog a good choppy hair cut would lessen the burden the heat must have been to him, but that kind of thinking suggested that she cared about the thing, and in truth, she didn't. In a bind he'd be a good meal if anything, since he wasn't worth a damn when it came to combat.

After scooping out the last remnants of a can of pork'n'beans, Charon had volunteered for first watch, and really, she couldn't argue - not with her brain dry and stuffy with all the residual heat still camping inside her cheeks.

"Energy", he said, "Too much energy.", one of his large ruined hands rubbed the front of his face roughly, "I won't be thinking of sleep for a while. You get some rest - soothskin's tire easy.", right he was, and she knew from experience now just how much stamina ghouls tended to burden themselves with.

Normally she wouldn't have traveled throughout the hottest portion of the day, but the urge to leave DC was stronger than most of the ancient bottles of bourbon lying around the radiance of the lantern. At that particular thought of booze, she stretched an arm out from her bedroll, cupping the neck of a bottle and unscrewing it noisily with her back straightening on the bed roll. Some contents flowed warmly down the side of her mouth as she drank; pooling into the cavern of her outer ear, but what did manage down her throat felt blisteringly saccharine and strong.

"Ahh' drink?", she asked; outstretching an arm over to the metal crate where the solemn ghoul sat watching the darkened sky intensely. He looked down at her with eyes that shown dimly in the moon-light – the sight reminded her of a holotape where some nocturnal bird had lopped its head around to stare glowing eyes down at some unnamed person. Without his look changing, he took her offering, swilled down a good amount and aimed the bottle back at her; contents swishing inside its unlabeled-confines. For a moment she stared thunderstruck at the borderline lackluster look in his eyes, but if that was the game he wished to play, she couldn't change his mind.

If he wanted to keep up the noncommittal act of being the cold bodyguard then she wouldn't press other issues. Survival was top priority always, and unless they found themselves in a bunker with the lock wound tight, she couldn't think of much else; shouldn't think of much else.

As far as she was concerned, whatever version her sex had in relation to blue balls - it was over, and whatever lust for him remained could be satiated with liquor or medx; ignored essentially for the time being.

She took the alcohol from him, hesitating only a second before lying back down as his face shifted back to the wasteland – the sight reminding her a some iterative robot; just going through the motions.

Even though each glug of old-world alcohol made the thin bedding under her thicker and softer – the activity in her mind just wouldn't abide to the same descending state of relaxation. She thought of a million things in a minute, including the inhospitable ghoul a few feet away. It'd been as though he'd been going out of his way to neglect the fact that he was out in the world again; roaming as free as she could get him to. He acted worse than the first time she'd met him.

For a moment she found herself missing the times back in the Ninth Circle, when even under the watchful eyes of Ahzrukhal, he had seemed more eager to speak with her. Perhaps though, that was the point – that out in the world, he no longer needed to resort to conversing with her to satisfy that longing for the outside, he had it right here.

When the stars greeted her as her head rested back on the thin sleeping-bag, she allowed her irrational fears to clock-in. The first irrational fear was if she'd made a mistake taking over Charon's contract, or even worse – if he'd noticed her little lithe card trick that started this whole strange comradere. That wouldn't explain the shower of cranial mattered she'd had to scrub off though, or why he'd helped her rob the caps from Ahzrukhal's register before skipping town (so to speak). The second irrational fear was that he didn't like her, not even for the presentation she easily was as fuck-material.

Once again – as a drunken tooth-ridden sneer found her face – her thoughts were drawn back to what she'd been refusing to let bite at her.

Why weren't they fucking like damnable Deathclaws by now?- and why hadn't she just instigated something instead of assuming his cold shoulder meant something more insidious than his normal charming personality. The truth was that – regardless of how it sounded to even herself – she wasn't ready to just bend over like some dog in heat and whistle for a rut for someone she actually had a heart for. She was young and he (being a ghoul) would never die of old-age, so the way she saw things – there was no hurry – her unfathomable luck would keep them alive against the odds.

The particular gooey train of thought required another pull from the bottle, but the end result left her stomach feeling raw and oddly...empty.

Wondering aimlessly along her own mental planar at this hour – with a watch coming up – wasn't conducive. She could figure things out at the proper time and place, but not now. She did, however, brew herself into a nice little estrus; leaving her body tense and smaller-mind reeling a mile a minute.

The booze was of no help.

In the dark quietness of the wastes – with nothing but the murmurs of insects and the far away howling of wild dogs ringing out to lull her asleep – she heard a lighter slap open; metal on metal. A spark wished itself into an unsteady flame; bursting bright for a millisecond beside Charon - it settled into a pulsing orange glow before vanishing just as the rich smell of nicotine invaded her senses. She didn't smoke; at least not enough to hanker on an addiction to the upper, but the smell of it definitely made her tongue swell with want.

Charon smoked, whether a habit he finally could enjoy religiously or something he just picked up she wasn't sure, but he enjoyed it most during watch; in the mornings the most often. She'd found this out early on, but where he'd gotten that lighter from she couldn't remember. Last her brain could recall, he'd cursed at the wet matches she'd found him days ago.

Her memory was never a thing to behold – unless a person needed medical facts or boring card tricks – but the holes pocking what mediocre memory she did have was making her think of her mind more akin to an aged cheese than an all-thinking organ.

She listened quietly as he inhaled the smoke; fresh vapor trickling over her, and then the staler bout flowing from his exhale; carrying a different tint to it that reminded her of meat grilling over an open flame. The smell filled her head with cotton; bunging up the gaping hole inside her head like a married batch of warm soup – but it wasn't enough.

Her eyes watched him pulling at the filter of the cigarette with his fingers; a billow of smoke illuminating off the moon from his nose in a sudden gray cloud. He sucked on the half-burnt roll again with eyes relaxed over the landscape.

He was busy enough; distracted with his satisfying smoke – so she slid a hand discretely into her pack, pinning her own relaxant between two fingers.

The medx syringe glistened under the moon, much like the side view of Charon's visible eye did. For some reason a lingering sense of shame and guilt found its way under her breastplate, growing thicker as she shoved the cap off the needle with a thumb. The whole ordeal reminded her of trying to get off with her dad in the next room when she was just a budding girl – it was a certain sense of dirty need and disgrace, and she wanted to get it over with quickly; evidence gone and high disguised as a drunken stupor.

No matter the feelings present now, as soon as she slid the needle below the ball of her shoulder everything would develop a film of placid pleasure.

When she shuddered out a breath as the plunger settled down fully, her eyes tipped back – the delicate rush fading from mild nausea into safe bliss - with her throat opening up along with her mouth.

This hit had been a long time coming – it'd been since preparing for the card game since she'd last enjoyed this and all she had to do now was shift languorously into her bed roll until sleep cradled her.

As it were though, things like this were never as easy as she'd assume – a rugged voice (choked with lingering smoke) broke the thick envelope around her skin; tore it open as a warm sweat ushered between her lower back and the bedding.

"A cigarette might seem worse, smoothskin...", he paused, and she could imagine so vividly, him taking another drag of his cigarette with her eyes still half closed, "...but it's more manageable than the morphine in your veins."

The quick bolt of fear; similar to being caught with a hand down one's trousers or stealing from a friend, evaporated back into the growing build-up of her envelope. She muttered – the tone of one almost sexually pleased lingering in her words, "Whats morphine.", it wasn't a question, since halfway through vocalizing it she'd forgotten the extent of her own curiosity in the gentle lappings of the high.

There was this sound – a sound that seemed so distant, yet so close – and it carried on in short intervals, like a chuckle or a mean laugh,"You've been doing this awhile.", he said again, but it didn't hold the monotony his last statement had.

In the haze, she found a means to frown.

"What...", inhaling the intoxicating vapors of smoke, "...does a man like you consider...ah'while?", she asked almost flippantly, forgetting the shame she should be feeling as the stars shone brightly. They glimmered like the light she'd seen when Charon had lit his smoke; just as orange and incandescent; beautiful, as if it were the first time she'd ever seen them dancing in their slow kaleidoscope. It was hard to stay mortified with the warm flush of narcotics constantly forcing her mouth into a petite smile.

She didn't hear him reply if he had – the slow effects flowing like a lazy stream or a rising sun.

* * *

><p><em>A day before Underworld; three days before Ahzrukhal's death...<em>

_Without any of the dozen light switches operable, she was left kicking over medical documents, rummaging through empty boxes and useless bio hazard materials in the dank glow of the pipboy – the weight and unfiltered fear leaking out through mum tears and cold sweat. Burns of now dead hands still itched on her skin; driving her closer to that basin's edge._

_There was no sobbing and no quivering as thin streams of tears fell down her cheeks; mixing with the soot and carving out clean trails. The only thing that did shake was her voice as she muttered curses and insults to the dead kid in the center of the room. _

_Routine scavenging was something that – if said allowed – would bring about bouts of bitter laughter. Nothing out here was ever routine, and tonight was no different. She'd killed often enough, more so than Raiders even, but never once had she wiped off the blood of a child's from her hands. She hadn't wanted it rubbing off on her clothes, so she'd squatted like some baby-killer on the floor, scraping off the blood with old worn newspapers and book pages; body cold and drumming with disgust._

_All she'd needed was a couple empty syringes to stab inside the bottle of liquid medx she'd pilfered days before, but nothing was easy or simple._

_The hospitals counters were swept clean; no key card or inventory sheets. The drawers were just as empty save from some dirt and broken bobby pins._

_In this moment she realized she may have had a problem; yanking draws from their cubbyholes, flinging them across the room with a shriek that broke into a growl. She couldn't take it anymore – the killing, the senseless ways in which this world operated. There were no rules, and people like her – people that killed kids – were free to forget about it and move on. On one end she wished for justice, and on the other – the one that was furiously seeking out a way into the lock supply closet – wanted nothing more than to sleep off this occurrence; hankered down in drugs and alcohol until it appeared as nothing more than a terrible dream._

_The scene replayed before her eyes; saturated over what her eyes were truly seeing as she whisked away grimy debris along the floor. It was almost more sickening to realize that on the first stab, she'd realized it wasn't a molerat or something else small and mindlessly dangerous, but her knife had descended countless more times even with that bit of doubt._

"_It was dark.", she muttered and muttered, as if eventually that would become a reasonable excuse for the cooling body behind her. She felt fretful with the corpse still lying just ten or so feet away – it was as if it's presence expanded every second, pinning her to the reception desk and the floor._

_Under a hard mass of aged papers; once wet and soggy, but now dry and molded, she recovered the keycard, holding it in her hand as the almost offensive looking piece of plastic brought a fresh stream of tears. _

_The end was near._

_Getting into that closet was the quickest thing she'd ever done, almost quicker than when she'd struck that empty needle deep down in her small glass vile; contents sucked up and expended in her veins with the door still banging back from the wall she'd slammed it into._

_That night she walked out of that hospital with the blood drying under her finger nails in the cold breeze, inhaling dust that swept from the cavities in the buildings. Despair was still evident when she slung her bag over a shoulder and carried on out with just the slightest gate in her step, but it was mute and only growing less distinct from the numbing in her head._

_She'd killed a kid tonight; snuck up on him in the dark when he wasn't alert and stabbed him before he could stick that shiv he'd had frightfully aimed for her stomach. It was dark and it wasn't her fault; self defense against a kid no older then eight she told herself, and the best part? - she believed it this time._

* * *

><p>Her eyes watered thickly; lids falling closed to hold the moisture in – the memory was oddly fresh all of a sudden, as if all it took to spark up was someone mentioning that she did indeed have a problem, even if that mentioning was offhanded and from someone who went back just as easily to watching the horizon as he did bringing it up.<p>

Even though her nerves sung pleasantly, she rolled over on her side, hugging her chest as she willed the drowsy stage to manifest itself. If praying worked, she'd pray for sleep, but it didn't and she was left awake and high on a bedroll that wasn't so comfortable anymore, with a ghoul smoking a cigarette behind her; carrying on silently as usual.

The drug wasn't doing it's job; stopped working just as soon as he'd mentioned something, and that made her furious – the self pity and depression had turned to ire. Her mind reeled with words she wished to spew forth; with actions she wouldn't follow through with, because she'd secretly hoped things would be easier with a friend that didn't demand a single thing from her (even if he was bound to serve).

One of those strange tears (not exactly a result of upset, but from position rather) rolled down the side of her temple and soaked into her hair. And just before she reached a hand up to wipe the offensive thing away, a startling hand grabbed her upper arm and yanked her laggardly on her back; half off the bed roll with the cold ground seeping past her shirt. If it wasn't for the drug, she may have attacked him on instinct at the unexpected action.

Charon crouched beside her – cigarette pinched in the other hand on his thigh – as he pinned her arm into the ground. Smoke seeped out the side of his mouth; escaping the thin crack between his lips while dull eyes shifted over her face.

"It hasn't been that long, has it?", he asked; voice as grating and angry as it always was, but the more exaggerated crevasse between his brow said he wasn't as angry as he was thoughtful.

"Not really.", she breathed out; quickly inhaling that grilled-smoke smell.

Her eyes hooded; watching past the medx-haze as he turned his head to look out over the horizon; always the trenchant watchman. He took another drag of that cigarette, blew it out as the breeze carried it away without it visiting her first – the fingers around her bicep wringing so tight that the throbbing of her heart beat grew stronger under his leather-cut gloves.

When he flicked the still red end of the cigarette off the roof, his eyes rolled down to her first (before anything else); head following only after his gaze gave her stomach something to flip over.

Despite the obvious discomfort she knew she exuded, he got down on his knees – that hand releasing her arm to pluck up her pack, setting it on his lap. In the light of the lantern he seemed to blindly rummage through its contents – something he'd never done before. He asked for ammo and she got it for him. He asked for food?- she got it for him. Thirsty? - she took care of that as well, which made the sight of him searching inside the bag with a deep frown all the more unsettling.

Asking 'what he was doing' crossed her mind, but there was no use once the inkling presented itself as he pulled out a caped medx syringe, stuck the caped end between his dull teeth and kept on searching.

Sure, she could guess as to what his ultimate goal was – maybe to rid of her of it or use the syringe as some visual aid in which to pep-talk her with – but once he had the three full syringes between his teeth and the half-empty vile in his hand she nearly flung up from her bed when he leaned back – quick and near gallant-like - and stuck himself with one of them; shooting up in a seconds time. She watched as he tossed the empty one off the roof, too shocked to speak or move.

Another one was yanked from his teeth – cap spat out – as it too went in his arm; ejecting the clear drug and ending up over the roof. The third one went the same way, and followed her thrumming heart rate was a strangled groan from his throat as his eyes fluttered near closed.

Those faded eyes caught her own like some clawed hand holding her lids open. She watched – since that seemed all she was capable of – while he provided her with a one sided smirk as he threw her vile across the roof top. It shattered like a delicate pilot light would if stepped on, but unlike the pilot light – the noise it gave made her breathe come out short and tight. Panic struck her as a mildly high ghoul lowered himself over her prone form.

Grilled-smoke, breathe wafted over her; hot and moist.

"Do you know...", her lungs wouldn't expand far enough for a deep breath without that uneasy, warm brush of panic rising quicker, "...what I went through to get...that?", she nearly choked.

"It wasn't worth it.", he breathed out – ragged - as if no mattered what she said, his answer would have been the same.

Moments like this she wished he would have restrained himself from executing Ahzrukhal so quickly. She knew very little about the stipulations around his contract, especially why he had the ability to throw out her stash of meds, yet she couldn't shove his face between her legs on pretense. She could go without the painkiller, but what if something truly gut-wrenching occurred? - how would she get over it? In the past she'd striven through things just as terrible in a sense, but already she'd forgotten how it'd been done – besides, drugs were easier and depending on which way one looked at it – less messy as well.

A rough thumb catching down her arm sent a shiver down her back – one that shook her shoulders almost pitifully. Her woe and pity outmatched the close proximity of Charon's mouth to her jaw. If he'd been anything but what he was now, he'd be dead or very close to the end...

But, it seemed, he wasn't any more doped than she, less so probably since he'd drank less of that aged alcohol than she. That almost delicious breath he'd been blowing down her collar was now overpowering and turning her belly sour. Something about this didn't feel right, and it still felt wrong when he took a palm full of her breast; squeezing either too softly or too roughly through her shirt.

Indignation wasn't the proper word for what she felt – more like a mix of shame and disgust for herself with a bit of an uncomfortable itch where his rough lips skated and his fingers pinched. This had been all she'd wanted since Christmas, yet now – as his hand traveled with hesitation down between her legs; kneading her beneath the fabric of her pants – she couldn't imagine a more wrong scenario.

"Stop...", she whispered, turning her face into where his mouth lay open along her neck; pushing him away even as he withdrew upon her command. To avoid the hollow gaze along her face, she shut her eyes, but the burn of his stare remained.

The silence drug on; uncomfortable and only growing more so until a weak grumble followed the ghoul as he stood up; leaving her to lie with tightly shut eyes as he sat back down in that unstable metal box to keep watch – it groaned in it's uncanny metal-way under his weight.

"It might not be nice, smoothskin, but eventually you'll remember how to function again.", his sentence was quiet and near-guttural from the medx, but somehow it sounded less angry. The sound of metal on metal flicked loudly, and just as she'd thought – the rich smell of nicotine lulled ove her as she found that drug induced sleep.

_Eighteen months ago..._

* * *

><p>"<em>So whats it like?"<em>

"_What is what like?", she groused; shoving anything of value inside her bag from the polished metal shelves: shampoo, toothbrushes and paste, old-school painkillers and antihistamines, along with a whole box of powdered soap. She'd be gone for good after this, no more false hope of return..._

"_Don't play dumb. It's all we talked about before you left, and your just going to act like I'm some fucking idiot now that your back – covered in that...that smell?", he spoke loudly behind her, obviously irritated and almost nervous, which was almost humorous in a way – the leader of the Tunnel Snakes; nervous. Funny._

"_Butch, you 'are' an idiot." She kicked a crate over – it's contents of disposable razors and shaving cream catching her eye. Smooth legs was something she could lay around with for a few days when she got to Megaton – just thinking of the small, forgotten luxury sent a small eruption of goose-flesh along her thighs; tightening the skin there. She grabbed two dozen and a bottle of cream; feeling Butch grow closer until he was within the parameter of her personal bubble, trying to pin her into that corner, as if she'd have little chance of escape but to answer his pointless questions finally._

_He'd followed her like some lost puppy since coming back from the Overseeer's office with blood on the collar of her shirt- as if the sight had attracted him to her in the more frustrating of ways. She was dangerous now; hard and untouchable he'd practically said, and that made her prime-rib for the next few minutes she allowed herself to stay here, but Butch wasn't much of a looker anymore, and no longer did she look up to him as she had._

_For the first time since she'd left she actually stared right at him – not the mild glances – but looked him square in the eye as he did the same; his features shifting under her hard gaze. For the first time she saw in his eyes the hidden despair, always being covered in a sheen of dickness that was so believable she'd never noticed until finding him now after all this time she'd spent outside. He had no mother now, and never any kind of disclosed father to speak of, but whatever sympathy she'd grown at the new insights, vanished, when his leather clad arm lifted to trap her between him and the jutting supply shelf._

_Everything she'd been through in the past nine months told her to gut him, and it was almost sickening how close her fingers had been to the knife at her back._

"_Get your fucking arm down, Butch, this isn't a game and bullshit this rotten doesn't fly on the outside.", and when he just stared; a little perplexed, she cut his arm down with the side of her hand at the bend of his elbow, shoving him back by the shoulder with a flat palm; ignoring him once more. _

_To his credit he didn't complain or make a noise as she went back to rifling through boxes and cabinets._

"_Okay...", he trailed on; boots echoing as they crept up slowly behind her, "...just tell me one thing alright?"_

_When she didn't answer he went on anyways – not that she expected any less._

"_What should I pack? Necessities you know; bare minimum stuff.", he said it with forced causality – that damned switchblade of his flicking open and closed in an annoying repetition as if the pep-talk she'd given Amata before the rest of them hadn't sunk through at all. What about 'perilous wasteland' spelled jolly-good for him?_

_Shoving a sack of prepackaged underwear in her bag, she stared at him mildly over her shoulder – his head was down, eyes on her, and if it wasn't for his eyes really exposing what his fake thin smile tried to cover up, she would have clocked him in the kneecap; relished the pop it gave and the cry of pain._

"_As bad as things are down here...", she started but it sounded hard and nothing with that tone would have convinced the Butch-man of anything, especially something he didn't want to hear. So – with a breathe and turning to sit on her ass – she stared up at him solemnly. She owed him a calm confession without any anger, at least for holding that old personal grudge that had her leaving him to stand still, alone to watch his mother die._

"_Outside...", she started, " - its like those old westerns we used to watch, but nothing's glorified and there aren't any gung'ho sheriffs going on all willy-nilly about law and justice.", she paused and lifted a knee to her chest; resting an arm on it as Butch sat down, despite the unimpressed look on his face. She thought of Simm's and how she'd looked up to him for the first day before realizing how much he had in common with everyone else; those old eyes that were just happy to be in a position that left him near invincible in a town of drunks and fanatics._

"_Everyone wants something that their not willing to work for, and those that do, do it for the wrong reasons. People eat each other, rape each other and kill for no reason...and if you survive all of that they still have a wide array of terrain and radiation, disease and mutated beasts to get you."_

"_Like dragons?", he asked; less unreachable, but no where less interested in the prospect of real sunshine – no matter the costs.._

"_No...", she muttered, curling her fingers through her fringe and smoothing the stringy pieces back against her scalp, remembering what seeing her first Deathclaw was like; how horrified and bewildered she'd been, but that she'd called it a T-Rex when she'd reached the safety of an Outcast patrol._

"_Listen, I'll spell it out for you Butch - you stay here if you want to live a long repetitive life; filled with all the luxuries of shampoo, good food, order and tv, but if you really need a short life with constant pains and torments, then you can follow me to the town west of here. But I'm heading to DC after that and if you follow...I won't care what happens to you."_

_He smiled that overtly-charming-but-sleezy smile at her, flicking his switchblade closed and rising almost too quickly for the poor wooden crate under him – it skidded and cracked, scattering little splinters of wood on the pristine floor._

"_I'll help you steal some more supplies.", and that was it before he left, coming back with a heavy sack; going about the task of stealing and hording all manner of usefull and useless things inside that bag._

_She watched him momentarily; near giddy that he was finally getting out of this whole. For him it was an endless vacation he was looking forward to, and – as she kept about her search of loot with a steady frown on her face – she hoped it never changed for him. If anything, for now, he could help her get more stuff outta here and maybe...just maybe, he could be the friend she needed for a little while._

* * *

><p>The night after they left the rooftop, she didn't speak to him – spoke to the mutt, but not to him. If he seemed irate at all over her plain disregard, then he surly didn't show it.<p>

Each time she passed a glance over at him – when the moment was safe and whatever hostile animal or raider they'd recently pulverized had breathed its last breath – he held that same tight mouthed look she'd always seen him suffer with in the Ninth Circle.

"Be careful.", it was the first thing he'd said to her for the past eight hours, but it wasn't sincere, she could tell; mandatory-like, almost.

That same damnable look glared over at her as she unhooked the pin from a rusted looking, and rusted smelling bear trap; crouched down on legs that wavered in the dark of night. The credit for noticing the trap actually went to Meatdog, but – with a quick peep at the beast – she surmised that petting him would leave a rancid smell on her hand, and her own smell was enough to deal with without that of mangy-mutt on her as well.

The cool crisp of the night was pleasant, but the darkness laid them all vulnerable to things like this. The trap gave a sinister snip, paused, and then as quick as a swipe from a Deathclaw – it snapped closed in a jostling clash of old metal and terrible corroded teeth. It was the unexpected action that made her heart leap briefly; that was it however, and as she rose, her palpitations settled. If she'd still had the safety net of medx – the whole thing wouldn't have gotten more than a frustrated frown, but as it were that feeling of shock left a strange residue in her abdomen. Everything after last night was seeming to leave a bad taste on her tongue; one that almost stung.

Charon just stared in a strange mixture of parted mouth and open murky eyes; pulling her frown down further. He continued to stare and the (now) annoying burn on her face birthed a thin sheen of cold sweat over her forehead. Being physically addicted to the drug hadn't really crossed her mind – it hadn't been too long that she'd used it as a crutch and when she did it wasn't as often as a 'normal' addict did, but the psychological torment was enough to string along new and frivolous woes.

Under his continued hard gaze she just sneered lightly at him, turning her shoulder on him to swipe at the sweat over her brow, but the moisture seemed to manifest anew. Again she rubbed at the fluids, but they grew thicker than what sweat would normally consist of - the smell was tangy and acrid.

Confused – despite that knowing inkling buried somewhere deep in her chest – she brought her hand before her, turning her palm down against the moon-light-drenched dirt. There before her eyes were all five of her fingers, but one considerably shorter and flatter than it had been a minute ago. Just as soon as her brain registered the lopped off finger – the pain came in as a slow growing pinch; growing into a hot throb that ran up to the crook of her elbow. What was worse than the horror and the pain, was knowing that it was only going to grow more acute and sharp as time passed. Blood, as black as the inky abyss above, dribbled down the length of that mangled finger and tickled hotly down her sleeve; pooling at her elbow.

"Shit.", she hissed; fanatically bending down to her knees in search of the lost finger. Beside her Charon knelt down, his hands assisting her own and eventually – as her breath came out harder and shorter – he grabbed at her hands and rested them on her thighs. It was the demanding look that brushed her; making her stay put, more so than his physical actions had.

She sat, almost well-behaved for someone whose chopped off finger lay buried in the dirt, and whose employee had all but pushed her aside like she were a hysterical child.

He rummaged in the dirt, paused, and pressed a few fingers of her pipboy. Concentrating on breathing and ignoring the suddenly unbearable pain on her hand, she just stared as he found the button he was looking for, and pressed it quick and hard. The green hue illuminated a good two-foot radius, and down in the sandy ground, she saw him pluck up the inch of her finger; covered in greasy looking blood and granules of sand.

They sat there for what felt like a week – both staring at the piece of finger sitting between Charon's ruined ones; bitten and raw, almost infected looking in the green light compared to the flush tip of her finger-piece.

Spiteful tears coated her eyes, but they were in a quantity to small to flow over – the pain was no more than a frightful burn that was more ignorable than a bullet wound, but deeper and more in tune with her heart beat. With each strong throb of the blood through her veins – a little more blood leaked from the stub laying on her thigh, and another languid rush of pain ran up the nerve inside her arm. All in all - the feeling was nauseating, and all her brain could whisper to her was that there was no medx left.

"I think I'm going to be sick...", she muttered; eyes on the bloody, grub-looking digit between his fingers.

"Then be sick. I might be best to get it out before I sew it back on.", his tone was as it always was, perhaps even a bit droll in a way, but she hadn't anytime to be angry at him before the partially digested remnants of molerat meat and instamash came up in a dramatic heave of her shoulders – it went over the closed bear trap like some disgusting punishment to the contraption. She gagged on the taste as some of it splashed over her tongue.

Vomiting was one of the worst things she could imagine – which was saying much in a world where it was common to fall prey to the horrible effects of radscorpion poisoning. Thankfully the whole ordeal crept up on her quick enough, and the worst was over – the pain seem less now that the intense striff of nausea had given way to the final bouts. A few dry heaves were all that wracked her frame, and just as her body started to relax, Charon's fingers came and (almost gently) pulled puke covered hair from her face – the act made her sob like a burping baby.

No one had held her hair for her like this since she'd gotten a stomach bug back when she was twelve, and the simple act did worse for her mentality than throwing up had. If anything – the tears dribbling into the pile of bile under her could be blamed on the act of vomiting anyways. It was a natural bodily reaction, much like the increased salvation before and after, she just hoped Charon would assume such a thing, though he never had struck her as a man that cried after he vomited, if he'd ever vomited that is.

He didn't let her linger long, pulled her up under an arm after a minute or so and walked her back to the shack they'd passed a few hundred yards away.

Meatdog lingered back, probably eating her sick like the wild animal he was. She didn't hear him panting behind them until they'd past the shack's caved-in mailbox on it's last, aluminum legs.

Inside the shack it was cold; colder than all the shifting breezes could muster outside – it was akin to any abandoned shack but an almost pristine radiator hung on it's side in the corner; promising heat.

Charon left her standing in the center of the one room hell-hole, kicking crap out of the way with those heavy boots of his; muttering something about filth and the cold. The lack of movement left her mind and body honing in on the pain in her hand; increasing it with nothing else better to do.

She gave a ragged sigh; pretending it lessened the pain as she took a seat on a turned over bookcase, "You know..Charon...", she began; voice mildy rushed and cracked while watching as he paused and turned a serious eye on her, continuing to kick away old bottles and trash while watching her out the side of his vision.

"What?", he said; all harsh and impatient.

"...I..don't think it's worth the trouble...putting it back on.", her words were much less nonchalant as she'd hoped – the despair and the pain very evident.

The idea of going through the discomfort for it to get infected and fall off wasn't ideal – plus, it was her gun hand. It was better to just let the thing scar over; count it as a sacrifice to the wasteland gods for not taking a limb or an eye. Half of a finger she could manage without, and as of now – even with the pain that made her stomach turn and her hands shake – she was just thankful it wasn't her whole hand.

"I've done this before. It is best - you don't need another handicap holding your aim back. You'll be fine.", he said only half of it while looking at her – the rest was spoken with his back at her while he pulled a less rancid mattress off the top of a bunk bed. Old nuka bottles fell off the bed and shattered mutely on the dirty floor.

"Another handicap?", she bristled as he flopped the mattress at her feet; a thin dust cloud radiating from the disturbance. He only gave her a narrowed look and went to start a fire in the tin fireplace to her right; brushing her off like he'd been doing since they'd left Underworld.

"What the fuck do you mean 'nother handicap'? What problem do I have that you' forgotten to mention until now?", she stood; feeling better about standing taller than him finally as he crouched to spark up a flame in the fire pit. Nothing was taking her mind of the throbbing in her hand aside from the sudden spark of choler Charon seemed so good at birthing inside her.

"D'you not recall the speech I gave you before we left the ruins? I 'did' say survival correlates to the two of'us working together; means you tell me whats'what and vice-versa! No holding y'ur tongue 'cause you 'ave some leftover conditioning you can't spit out!", she didn't scream, but she hissed and spat out in a damaged pattern of hurt-riddled speech. Pain fed the anger, and his cold shoulder fed the pain. Because of him she didn't have the medx that could calm this whirlwind – because of him she was left to suffer the pain like she'd had to before.

"You see things a couple centimeters off." - calm, calculated and to-the-point. He finished the last word as a fire blazed to life with the snap of his elbow – the heat was almost instant, and the warmth ironically cooled her temper.

"How do you figure that?", her cheeks still simmered with vexation, but the warming of the shack and the curiosity baited it down – the pain, the only thing keeping her anger solid.

"When you aim for the head you catch them in the right eye. Always."

With her hand curling - smashing the bloody stub of her finger into her palm painfully - she lowered her eyes to the top of his head. The fire before him cast the thin red patches of hair on his scalp the color of blood; like blood in the rays of the sun. Her lips felt cracked and dry when they parted, "No...I meant, why do you call that a handicap?", she already had a guess, but wanted to hear him say it.

Charon rose, and no longer did she feel that elevated pleasure at being the tallest anymore, but his calm stare was, in a way, filling that gap. The fire behind him hid most of his face, but she was sure he could see hers quite clearly.

When he spoke, his voice was low and grated, "It's the result of brain damage."

She stared up at him; emotions too erratic and combative to show on her face.

"Don't think too hard on it, smoothskin. Sit down. We need to attached this-", he held up her dirty bit of finger as her eyes waned off his face to the offending thing, "- before it rots."

Oddly enough, she nodded her head slowly; eyes falling near close and body lowering down to sit on the mattress he'd lain out. Survival sometimes meant knowing when to close your mouth and let someone more experience take the reins, and even if surviving alone for so long would make this transition as hard for her as him, she could at least start now and let him sew her back up.

* * *

><p><em>For something she'd seen her father do a hundred times, she just couldn't bring herself to thread the needle – let alone manage to get it in her own flesh when the time arose. Her fingers shook like the dead leaves on the tree at her back, and the vision of tugging her own skin back together - yanking it sealed with the half-white surgical thread – seemed unfathomable.<em>

_The blood smelt and the more it bled - the more her hands shook._

_Numbness had overtook the pain minutes ago, but that wasn't quelling the urgency to seal up the gushing wound. The culprit of the quandary lay three feet away; a mold-furred yao-guai – its matted hair clumped but blowing in the stiff breeze none-the-less._

_Her lips and teeth were parted; adrenaline still flowing, even if it was diminished now and only waning still._

_Again she tried to thread the needle, but her eyes were to distracted by the tarnished surgical steel to concentrate on the small opening. Out here, if blood loss or trauma didn't kill you then infection did, and the long tear through her pants leg (mangled and bloody) looked like a prime customer for gangrene._

_In defeat, her hands fell at her sides; an early morning breeze tickling her hair against her left cheek. _

_A dim sound pulled her eyes to the horizon as a small dot grew large. Initially she assumed death was finally coming for her, but that he would come like everything else did – no biblical apparitions of a cloaked figure...no glorification, even in death, out here in the wasteland, death would come without frivolities._

_But as luck would have it – it was not death coming over the horizon. A ruddy-red brahmin-led caravan made it's way to her. The merchant; an old man, and the guard; a woman in her thirties. The morning sun was creeping up behind them; obscuring her view drastically, but the longer she waited the closer they got, and eventually she realized they were heading for her. The emotion, close to relief, found it's deceitful way into her heart and without a second thought, she smiled a dead-smile as the trader stopped in front of her. His brahmin made a strangled noise as if to greet her and she gave her smile to the two heads before peering up at the sun-shadow-concealed man._

"_What's your trouble, little one?", his voice was old and tired in a way, but it wasn't callous like most old voices went._

_Her smile grew in an odd and pained sort of way, "Bear troubles...and...", she thought for a second; squinting in the sun, "...troubles."_

"_I hear yah'...perhaps you need some assistance? - assistance a man of mah' profession can provide.", his words were coated in sugar, and it was then she knew a catch was to be had. There was never a free ride any more._

"_What...compensation you talking of, old-man.", her smile was gone and she lay at his mercy as blood pooled in an odd triangle between her legs._

"_Caps...", he said; eying her with his head turned to silhouette a scruffy beard, "...or pussy."_

"_C-caps.", she stated quickly; a little stutter to her answer. "I have caps." she reiterated as the barest lines of an uncomfortable grin beheld exposed on his face._

"_Fifty. I got's ah' stimpack for you. Another and its eighty five.", her lips quivered as she watched him lift open the flap to one of the dozens of satchels over the brahmin's back. He pulled out one beautifully shimmering stimpack and bent down to her side; his knees popping and crackling as he sat on his heels._

"_Caps?", he spoke with a hand held out. She saw the old brown-aged skin of his palm and reached for her pack with shaken hands that the sight of was sickening. Blindly she searched for the pouch of caps at the bottom of her bag, and when she finally plucked the half-heavy sack in her palm – the old-man took it from her as easily as he'd have picked up a rock from the ground. _

_The stimpack was placed on her thigh, near her open wound, and up he went to his feet; knees crackling again. In his hand he held a sack with ove three-hundred caps stuffed inside, and yet all he did was toss her that sugar-sour grin and throw her another stimpack at her feet in the soft dirt._

"_Pleasure, little one. You have a good day now ya'hear.", and with the tip of his hat he pulled the reins on his brahmin and left her. The guard sparing her an unaffected look as she too followed; leaving her robbed, but potentially healed._

_Death wouldn't come for her this morning, but broke and battered still, she was about as close to the end as she'd been before..._

* * *

><p>A stimpack; the last stimpack lay on the edge of the stained mattress, and what she would have given to have had two – just so one could ease up the warm slippery needle setting her nerves on fire. Two stitches held the bit of finger on just barely – the shaking of her hand had to be stifled between Charon's solid knees to keep the tip form falling over like some disgusting human version of a soup can top bending back.<p>

"Think of something else, and stop looking at it.", he'd said the same thing a minute ago, and no doubt he'd say something like it again, but she couldn't remember anything nice enough to take her mind off the stinging pain and no manner of self-preservation could keep her eyes from the view of his fingers wiggling around like some well execute bomb dismantlement.

She'd asked – stupidly- why he couldn't just slip the stimpack in her hand now, and sew her up after, but even she knew the answer to that and he never did dignify her with an answer. The stimpack was needed to knit the flesh together while the stitches kept the two pieces flush against the other, without it the nerves and the tiny capillaries wouldn't fuse.

There was no arguing, so she took a swill of the vodka he'd used to sterilize everything before hand – it helped, but not enough.

He didn't pause when she whined, and he didn't damn her when her wrist jerked between his knees each time the needle threaded the tubing through her skin. At least – she surmised – he was quick with his fingers, and this was no different. One more pass through the swollen skin of her finger, and another through the white nub - a tight tug and a tight knot, and he was done.

A dopey, relieved grin graced her face – the sweat on her brow slipped down her cheek as her eyes lingered closed as the sharp pain rested into a steady burn. If he'd left her like this – hunched over with a wrist pinned between his knees and her other hand beside his hip - she would have fallen asleep; allowed the exhaustion to take her down, but the bottle of vodka was yanked from her hand and the contents splashed over her Frankenstein-finger promptly without warning.

Her eyes shot open and she bit back a shrill yell as the pain stung like a million ant bites down her arm; spotting at the tips of her fingers, "Holy...hell..!", she cried as her face flushed hotly and the sweat formed anew.

"Stimpack now.", he muttered, reaching over with her wrist still pinned. He stuck the stimpack in her hand; close to the damaged finger, and flushed the medicine inside slowly. With morbid curiosity, she watched the liquid swell inside a blue vein on the back of her hand until it poked up defiantly under the skin.

"I wish my stomach was full so I could vomit on you...", she said easily as the stimpack took away the pain without any groggy side effects, and very little rushing nausea. She watched – always fascinated by the quick effects of the medicine – as the seam of red, swollen, and bleakly, bloody skin became crusty and scabbed.

"I'm larger, smoothskin. I'd return the favor, but in greater quantities.", he muttered, and when she brought her eyes from her mending finger to his stony face, she saw the smallest edges of a smile. Just a minute ago she could have bet a kidney that Charon had never, nor would ever, make a joke in his life, but she was left with a wrist pinned and a chest against his shins while he just smirked lightly as her.

"Vomit war?", she nearly mimicked his own look as the sweat began to dry like a second skin over her face.

"If you command it, I'll do it.", his tone stopped her growing smile for a second, but the small flicker in his eyes had her near grinning. The night was growing to an end, and despite the laceration and the puking, she felt a light warmth bury inside her chest like a nesting critter.

Even as Charon let her wrist go from between his legs to throw another crumbled ball of cardboard on the small fire, she remained hunched and watching as the fire-light coated his face in a delicate orange.

It may not be nice, but he was right, she'd learn to function again, and having someone like him around to take care of her meant more than any amount of luck in the world.

"Thanks, Charon.", she smiled at his turned face, and even though he just grumbled softly and lit up a smoke against the licking flames of the fire, she felt that warmth curl between her lungs and radiate forth until her whole body sung.

It was a good thing she'd played Ahzrukhal for a fool; it was good she'd been caught shooting up, and in a way it was good she'd nearly lost a finger – for the ghoul puffing away at his heady-smoke had instigated those same enjoying moments she'd had with him in the Ninth Circle...and something told her he was smirking still as he smoked into the fire.

Her red-rimmed eyes fell to the padlock on the shack door; latched, along with another chained lock that emitted protection like a coal emitted heat. Grilled-smoke flowed up her nose, making her mouth water lightly and her gaze turning to the ghoul hunched with a knee still bent up at his chest.

Anticipation flooded her gut, and that desire she'd lacked last night came pooling between her legs in a blatant result of the thoughts that passed through her smaller-brain. She took a quick gander at her finger - the scabs having fallen off to expose fresh pink flesh; thin, but evident that Charon had been right all along.

Even though her knees felt like viscous goo, and they shivered against each other when she walked behind him - the sudden and unwavering desire didn't ebb. On her knees, with the sound of the mattress creeking under her knees, she knew he knew she was behind him - had to have.

"Charon...", she murmured; taking his shoulders in her hands, being delicate of her healing finger.

She rested her lips over a leathery patch of old skin, feeling the soft but tough texture against her mouth and the tip of her nose. Against her chest, his back expanded with a heavy inhale; luring her body to flush lowly against him. On her knees she was still shorter than him sitting, but that may have been another reason she was attracted to him - not just sexually, but for the mountain of walking death he could be. He was a living breathing terror that still had the meticulous, careful touch that could stitch together a smoothskin's finger, and all she wanted was to run her mouth over every exposed fissure of muscle - every patch of barely living skin and exposed tight vein.

A freak of nature is what they'd call her, but even Charon had said she suffered from brain damage and in this sort of world, a person didn't question what they wanted when it was right in front of them; didn't question it when what they wanted was leaning into them with an exhale of such savory smoke.

"I didn't forget...", she whispered; a cheek laying against his warm neck, feeling the rough scratchy texture against her smooth skin, "...but you know that."

Her tongue poked out against his skin and the resounding rumble she soaked up from his back got her hand moving down over a shoulder to his chest; fingers slipping under the first leather belt, and using it to his back further into her chest. He wasn't stupid; knew she was referring to that night when he slammed her on that table with the taste of his tongue still in her mouth.

"I know that.", he muttered with a cigarette in the side of his mouth – a rough hand coming to lay on the wrist over his chest; holding it firmly as her mouth sealed over his neck. In effect, all she did was hug him close, kiss lightly over the scaring of his neck and rub her fingers over the filthy leather armor over his chest. It was just nice to have someone close; to share a moment of peace and quiet while all the death, lying, stealing and hate dissolved away.

"Thank you.", the fire let off floating sparks as she whispered again, but when his hard hand squeezed her wrist gently, she knew he understood it wasn't only about the mended finger; wasn't even about the men, women, and monsters he'd killed since they partnered up – it was about everything.

It was about being what she hoped he would be; a friend – the friend she'd needed all along.

* * *

><p>Thanks again to all the passerbys, readers, favers, alerters, and reviews for the last chapter. If you have the time, drop me one yourself - anons welcome and praised as much as the members.<p>

Until next time.


	4. Soap

This was orginally part of one chapter, but it just grew and grew like a damn okra blossom (trust me thats fast a feverish) so here is a cut out chapter four. The next one is written (well about eighty percent done), so please do enjoy this one while I re-read and finish up the next one - will be out soon. Please review (I savor them like fine brandy wine). Anyways, enjoy the read.

Don't own Fallout. (wah)

* * *

><p>It'd been enough just to lay next to someone while she slept that night; curled on her side with the stiff, healing finger laid up in Charon's open palm. He was warmer than Desmond had been, and from the brief contact she'd had with other ghouls – it was safe to say that Charon ran hotter than anyone she'd known; almost blisteringly idyllic.<p>

The soft even throb of his heartbeat pounded in her ear; her head resting on his stretched arm while her back molded against his front in a near-sweet orientation.

Yes, she has been the one to ask him if he wanted a mattress instead of the dusty ground to spent the night on, but it'd been him to pull her back into his chest while the fire died into a red pulsing ember; small flames struggling against the inevitable end.

"What do you think the wasteland would be like with fresh water?", she murmured; lips pressed into the grimy leather of his arm as she picked at some rough, raised skin on his palm.

They hadn't spoken much but a few words here and there for the past hour; tired but awake all at once. The sun had come up a few minutes ago and as bred to be day-walkers as they were – it was hard to fall into sleep on a whim when the little rays of sunlight filtered in through the eroded cracks riddled in the metal walls. Not having to keep an eye open, or rely on another to keep watch was something else wholly new and strangely arduous to be complacent with.

"More violence.", he spoke, with that hot breath straining past the filth of her hair; gracing the skin of her scalp and heating her smaller-brain pleasurably.

"How do you figure that?"

He shifted against her – a hand came and grasped her stomach, pulling her closer as his chin landed along the top of her head, "Clean water is a valuable commodity, people won't be content with just enough to get by. Those people horde and kill over it.", one thumb stroked against the sensitive skin under her navel as he exhale over her again; goose bumps littering her skin in effect, "There's no saving bad people."

She stared at a gathering of old bookshelves and tattered novels as the coolness infiltrated the skin his warm breath abandoned soon after he spoke his last word. Certain thoughts – those relating to her own transgressions – bubbled up slowly, and she grabbed blindly at one of his thick fingers and squeezed.

"Some would say we're bad people, you know.", she whispered – the fire crackled defiantly; lighting up the shack pallidly as the silence settled.

"Bad people don't think of a wasteland with clean water...", he stopped, but his words lingered as that hand on her stomach rubbed her through her shirt again, "...they don't regret their wickedness either." His mouth had found her ear, not touching it but blowing moist breath down her cheek and neck; looking down on her, she knew.

She hadn't told him but a quarter of the atrocities she'd committed since leaving her Vault, but even though she felt guilty for savoring his words – and believing them at least until she next woke – she closed her eyes and pulled his clasped finger to her chest. Whether he followed her into sleep then or later, she didn't know, but despite there being nothing but painful, broken bed-springs under her, and a hard-muscled arm as her pillow – it was one of the best sleeps she could remember.

It had been quick though – the sleep had seemed like the blink of an eye, but coming with a new wave of energy and collation. The warmth at her back was still breathing down her neck, still had his hand draped over her side; fingers splayed on her clothed stomach, and still there were those pleasant but bothersome goose bumps riddling around the point of contact. It came as no surprise to realize it was the first time she'd ever slept with someone since she was a child. Never had someone held her all through the night (or day in this case); sleeping soundly as she did.

For minutes or hours – there was no telling – she lay; rubbing her cheek into the dry, but wet smelling, leather on his arm. They both needed to wash, but the smells – putrid and common for the wasteland – didn't bother her as it may have before.

Past the growing smile on her face, and the soft atmosphere expanding sharply around them; filling the shack until not a single breath wasn't without pleasance – her stomach moaned loudly. That large, heavy hand over her side slipped down over her belly and cupped it; a hot wash of breath making her spine tense.

"Hungry.", he muttered into her scalp; stating it as a fact more than a question, and possibly an admittance as well.

"Not by choice", like any after-sleep voice, hers was cracked and small, but she explained her distaste for movement with a light roll of her backside; innocently moving closer into his heat – she'd starve if it meant remaining so snug for just a little longer.

There hadn't been a single sexual thought since last night, but the unexpected grunt resounded against her back remedied that, and for at least thirty seconds she lay still as his hand remained firm on her belly, until he released her and rose to a sitting position. Belatedly, she thought of pulling him back down, but he was already on his feet and balling up material for another fire by the time she cleared her throat.

Lust may not have been something knew - at least not towards him, but as it went for other people, she'd never really responded to much besides the pent up aggression for Desmond...and Butch the night before she left him high and dry in Rivet City, but that was something she didn't spend too much excess thought on – he'd been an outlet...they both had.

As if there had still been remnants of an ember on the fire pit - a blaze of light expanded into a spew of fire as Charon's lighter scratched a spark - the flame became steady, more than enough to heat up a can of pork'n'beans on, and - as if he knew just what she'd been thinking - he plucked up a tin can and stuffed it in the oscillation of embers.

To her left, Meatdog rose from his dark cool corner to pad over against Charon's side - the mutt seemed to like him more than herself – sniffing him and nudging him even when he all but glared a sandstorm on it, yet even a friendly whistle from her still did little but get her a sight of perked ears and a vacuous stare.

The beast's glistening nose pushed against Charon's hip; large jaw flapping open to pant softly as a scabbed set of fingers reached out to scritch a spot against one high ear. Charon leaned forward; a cloud of gray smoke filtering up as he leaned back, and that smell filled the shack once more. She closed her eyes against the rush the scent gave and - without worrying much - she dozed back into that thin line between sleep and wakefulness while he made breakfast (or dinner...).

* * *

><p><em>One year ago...<em>

_I'd been a bad idea to lead him this far east, especially when she'd taken most of the shots for him. It would have been more merciful for Butch down the road if she'd just taken them down her normal route - let him get a few bullet wounds - instead of taking the long and safer way to the rusted, metal mass of bitter-smelling boat. _

_In the dark of the hotel room, she watched him breath in and out; naked and splayed on the bed – the dark hairs on his chest still damp from their combined sweat._

_A needle-like pain settled behind her right eye, and fruitlessly she kneaded the flesh under that eye; staring back down at her bare feet. For the first time in what felt like years, she had smooth legs, shaved under arms and cleft, and clean hair – everything smelt like acid-washed soap, but at least – she inhaled the scent – it wasn't the stale sweat and body odor she'd gotten used to._

_Behind her Butch snored and rolled on his side; away from her. His bare ass caught her eye, but the sight didn't bring about the lust she knew a normal girl would have felt for his tanned skin and smooth muscles. There was just something...plain about his body; something that she'd noticed as early as when she was fifteen, and those thoughts led her to experiment with Amata, but that didn't yield anything different. Fucking him had been good enough though, and despite the guilty pain thrumming behind her eye – she felt content and satisfied enough._

_As she pulled on clean-never-worn-before socks, she spat out the wave of guilt at leaving him here – it was for the best she'd decided. He wouldn't last on the outside and she didn't have the care nor the time to teach him. At least here in the confines of these metal walls he would live half of the dream he'd wanted. This boat was new to him, and perhaps that would be enough. He could drink and fuck the desperate girls here; make some caps and do it all over again until he couldn't take it anymore._

_When the last knot in her boots were tied tight enough to make her toes throb, she looked at him again; his back muscles expanded softly as he breathed. She told herself she'd visit him again one day as she got to her feet; would check in from time to time when she was in the neighborhood, and maybe he wouldn't despise her for this after awhile._

"_Seeya around...", she breathed; barely a sound, "...Butch-man.", and then she left; bag slung over her shoulder and weapons strapped to her back – a pouch of caps and a well-kept 10mm on the bedside table._

_He ended up not being what she needed after all – not that there was much surprise in that._

* * *

><p>A slightly off-but-tasty smell wafted under her nose; lulling her out of a brief but realistic dream-memory.<p>

Past the crack of vision in one eye, she saw Charon sitting before her; legs crossed with a spoon of beans steaming over the open can. He stared down at her briefly before spooning the almost-rancid food in his mouth – not even chewing, just swallowing it thickly. She wondered if he still had all his taste buds, and if there was a way for her to get in on the pros that came with.

He took another mouth full and rested the spoon back in the tin; eyeing her as if she'd done something awkward she wasn't aware of.

"Is there something on my face?", she asked before making a horrible crack in her neck with the side of her hand; pulling herself up to rub the leftover crusts of sleep from her eyes; picking and pulling with nails at the challenging bits. Charon just snorted through his nose and took another bite of the beans and pork as if eating the food was more pleasurable than talking to her – which might have been true. They hadn't eaten since last evening, which was at least twenty hours ago.

"You kick in your sleep when your by yourself, you know.", he stated it with his same tone; angry and dull, but it was getting easier to decipher the miniscule changes in tempo in order to understand how and in which context he said certain things. Another spoonful of beans went into his mouth and he made a tight face as he swallowed.

"How is your finger?", he asked, but he wasn't looking at her with concern, just disgust as he eyed the contents of the tin can – it appeared he had enough taste buds to know he was eating something foul and too old.

Her belly went sour and made a muted howl at the prospect of food – no matter how revolting. "Like nothing happened.", she muttered past the calling of her stomach and curled said finger in front of him. He stared her and her small ruddy finger down, tossing the spoon with a plunk and a rattle into the can before handing it to her. She took it without question; shoveling slop in her mouth – the quicker she ate it the less of it she had to taste.

When he spoke; a serious question to his tone, she paused, "Does this boat we're going to have...", he paused as if to make the coming words less brittle, "...restrictions against ghouls?"

He rested his elbows on his crossed thighs; back bowing to where he was almost as short as her in this moment; eyes never wavering.

Before responding, she stomached the last spoonful of food; reaching out for the near-empty bottle of whiskey and unscrewing it, "No. But they're no worse than any other bigoted shit-hole. I wouldn't worry about it though." The whiskey washed down the foul taste, but just left her famished again. Charon's stare was still harsh and burning when she peered upwards. "Hell...most raider's take a second too long gaping at you – a bunch of 'civilized' homebodies won't think twice about keeping their mouth shut. I assure you, no one wants to fuck with someone like you. Except me maybe.", she forced a overzealous grin past the taste lingering in her mouth and capped the bottle smoothly.

His gaze didn't falter and she found herself uncapping the bottle again, taking another swill of the booze just to have something to do under his pitted look.

He spoke finally, but that undertone past the angry timber made her gut wrench, "I wasn't worried about myself.", his off-blue eyes skimmed over her appearance in a way that wasn't sexual nor innocent, "No one takes kindly to a smoothskin and a ghoul traveling together, much less a female smoothskin and a male ghoul."

There was no denying his logic, but there was also no dwelling on it either – no one would negate her service or a bed just because he was with her. If anything, she was mildly titillated by the reactions she'd seen so far – a traveling merchant, some waste scoundrels, and raiders were of the only ones she'd seen a change in, but being in Rivet City with him would be interesting.

"Try not to think about it, we'll be in and out, back in the grinder before you know it. Besides...", she dropped her voice briefly, "...I doubt you'd share a bed with me in that dingy boat even If I ordered you too."

That got the smallest of smirks out of him, but he refrained from speaking – instead he reached across the shack (the sight of his extensive reach interesting to say the least) and grasped her boots, dropping them at her side. In other words, he wanted to get going, and who was she to say no to him when he stood like the sun and the moon above her. There never really was a contract between them; like it didn't even exist except for that one moment when her fingers first touch it, and that warm spray of blood painted her.

"Lets head out then", she said with a mild smile; an easy and real smile, as he slung his shotgun over his shoulder; mask of death claiming his face once more.

* * *

><p><em>Thirty three hours later...<em>

"You're good at ignoring people, just do what comes naturally.", she muttered as the clammy smell of the ship made her eyes water concisely – the boat, no matter how clean, never smelt any better than mirlurk breath.

"Naturally.", he snorted (amused and at the same time not) behind her, and she knew – a smirk curling on one side of her mouth – that his arms were crossed tight over his chest. He growled again, "We could clear this boat in half an hour. I doubt anyone would care."

Meatdog gave a gruff bark – catching more attention from the buyers and sellers at their sides – his canine translation almost an approval to Charon's loose threat of devastation.

"Dead people aren't worth a damn, even less than these people...", she muttered as Meatdog pranced forward with a tongue flopping up and down wetly; staring back up at them, "...but this place has value: ammo, food, booze, and all the other luxuries that come with a mass clumping of people without aim to kill each other over mean looks.", she gave a lectured under her breath as they made it without issue through the market iles. Granted – the stink eyes and bile-filled sneers directed at her friend did very little for her own mood, much less his, but it'd taken all night and most of the morning to get here – to make trouble now would just be too exhausting.

"Point taken", he muttered; loud enough to catch the attention of a lone man sweeping the floor. The old, un-shaven and droopy-eyed man looked up; recoiling inwardly with eyes poking open – it was almost enough to call upon her own offences, as if the insult had traveled passed Charon and right inside of her.

Even before her brain surgery in Point Lookout, even before Christmas, and even before meeting Gob, she'd never had a problem seeing people for who they were, not what they appeared to be. It was easy to look past the physical appearances when they seemed displeasing to others; so easy, that she found the general human being frustrating for this very reason. Ghouls were the only ones whom had the same filters as she did – a reason she was drawn to them in the first place.

Only later did she realize that there was something about their exposed bodies and deep insights that attracted her to them on a more base level, yet Charon seemed the only one she'd truly been intrigued by – even Desmond had been something abrupt and uncalled for.

Past her shoulder, she peered at him; catching his slanted eyes surveying the close corridors and water-stained walls – he looked larger in the tight confines of the halls, so much more than out in the wastes. Her eyes went back before her; expecting at any point to catch Butch turning a corner. It wasn't fair to say that she wished to avoid him out of some form of shame, or hate, but it was a more petty emotion that involved the ghoul at her back; an emotion that was as selfish as the oldest of man's emotions.

The Weatherly Hotel was empty save the robot circuiting in half-center rotations; a pencil in one stiff clamp and a worn bowl-hat teetering off it's head – a prank maybe? Or just a failed attempt at making the inhospitable robot more approachable. A scuffed, brass-rimmed name plate on the desk brandished the Mr. Handy's name – Mr. Buckingham - no doubt salvaged at the bottom of the ship and transplanted as the calling for the skittish mechanical man only now noticing the two of them.

It made a strange batch of bountiful noises that had to have been a failed greeting. Last time she was here it hadn't seemed so rundown, but all that meant was she had the possibility of making a few caps by pretending to know how to repair it, and for all she knew she did – luck was a good thing in the right circumstances.

"Yeah...", she turned to Charon who had come to stand at her side; elbow close to her bicep and eyes straight ahead.

"Two rooms.", he said gruffly before looking down at her with one bow raised, as if he expected her to retaliate, or something along those lines.

"Two rooms.", she repeated his words; looking up at him with a steady gaze. He seemed unwilling or too tired to commit to some staring match however, and looked away slowly with little emotion.

"Thank you sir or madam. One-hundred and eighty caps is your total – with your discount. Please dispense accordingly, and have a-a-a-a pleasant stay.", its voice module free-roamed a moment – a stray spark flying out between a tube wrapped around its front casing and under the joint of one mechanical limb. No one could say Mr. Buckingham lacked personality, even if it was due in part to its mechanical deficiencies – the hat did wonders though.

She had half a mind (nearly) to use the old saving-caps-speech on him. A hundred and eighty caps wasn't a lot but it was enough to be of a loss, especially just in one night, but just as her lips parted to use her tarnished silver tongue on him, a small pouch of caps was dumped down on the counter besides her palm. Her eyes creased, and as she turned to her left.

Something churned in her gut long before she recognized the face.

Low and behold – before her eyes was the pompadour of the one and only Butch; mouth turned down and skin looking paler than it had when she'd last seen him. He didn't look good, but with eyes that angry and lips that thin – no one would.

"How you doing, poindexter?", he seethed it as he put a hand on the counter beside her own; oblivious to a mountain of a ghoul that had pushed himself up against her back. The old saying 'stuck between a rock and a hard place' came to mind, but the brief show of poorly taken care of teeth between Butch's lips got her mind off useless words. He looked old; like he'd aged five years in one...

"We need to have a serious fucking talk.", he groused loudly, her blank stare only making the ire on his face less constrained and more arrant. Honestly, she didn't know what to say to him; didn't want to say anything really. She'd done enough for him, and in a sense – she owed him nothing, not even an explanation.

"Can it wait? I'm a bit tired – Charon too. We can catch up this evening...maybe.", she made her voice particularly stale and short, turning to the counter as she fished out her own caps; ignoring the sack he'd flung on the counter – the bare look on her face only growing colder. She really hadn't thought Butch would have missed her 'company' so much.

"Are you seriously going to play this damn game with me? It's been a year! What do you think I am? - a turncoat?", his tone grew and Charon's body went from silent intimidation to suddenly being only a few inches from Butch's face, somehow slipping around her back like some damned comic-book snealth warrior; emitting a low and steady growl.

She knew the look he was pinning Butch with, without having to turn around. Spending her down-days wetting her whistle in the Ninth Circle had landed her privy to just about every shade of furious Charon could muster – to say it was intimidating was ignorant. It was discouraging.

"No it hasn't.", she stated, imagining the egomaniacal Butch pissing himself at the stare down he was receiving now. If anything - hearing the trickle of piss while Butch wet his pants would have been worth all the caps in her bag; all the caps in the wasteland maybe. Resentment was a funny thing, once you thought it was gone, it comes back violently.

Even as she dumped her caps in the slot - feeling the tension of the two males behind her – all she truly felt was the exhaustion and the mild depression of having run into this predicament. In front of Charon she didn't want to show any regret or guilt she may have indeed been burying for Butch, nor did she really want to speak with him now or later.

"Come on Charon, lets go to sleep.", she muttered, as the key cards were dispensed from the robots chest with a vibrant ding of approval. She grabbed hers, and stayed put just long enough to watch Charon peel himself from a still and silent Butch, grab his card and head stiffer than Mr. Buckingham to his room.

Maybe Butch expected that once Charon was gone she would talk to him – judging by his open mouth and expectant gaze as she walked past him to her own room.

He'd have to wait; at least, that's what she told herself.

* * *

><p>It'd occurred to her fifteen minutes deep in the sheets of the Weatherly's lumpy excuse for a bed, that her over activated mind couldn't ignore the need to reconcile before letting sleep take her.<p>

For a minute or two she felt the familiar ire for Charon and his responsibility for the lack of med-x at her disposal. If only she'd had a syringe (half-full even), she could ignore her consciousness and drift off easy. As things were though, she'd have to deal with the emotions the hard way – lest she sneak into The Quick Fix, literally to get herself a fix.

Two mornings ago – sleeping with Charon at her back – had been enough to keep her mind off the desperate want for a narcotic-numbing, but now by herself with the weight of Butch's aged face in her mind's eye, she couldn't stop the trembling of her leg.

For another ten minutes she sat at the foot of the bed with her temple in one hand and her gut growling sharply; retaliating like her wobbling knee. Things like this – old grudges and emotional scars – left her stomach in knots and she didn't know whether to shit or vomit violently, or both.

Her mind had – in a sense - been made up the second she'd closed the door behind her; hearing Butch curse loudly before leaving the lobby of the hotel. They'd been through enough together to make her plain disregard of him a conceited move through and through.

She slipped out her room with old memories both a welcome sensation and a dread. Meatdog didn't whine at the door as she shut it, and Charon's door seemed dejected enough that she thought – briefly – of forgoing Butch and crawling in bed with the stone-faced ghoul, despite his unwavering opinion of the matter, but that idea died quickly enough.

Butch wasn't too hard to sniff out. All of his old habits back in the Vault hadn't changed when she'd returned, (when he'd followed and when she'd left again) and there was a good chance of those detrimental habits staying the same, especially now. His eyes hadn't struck her as belonging to someone keeping the liquor bottle on the top shelf - no, he was probably balls deep in a bottle right now.

Down the groaning metal corridors (where water trickled in individual currents along the rusted bolts and seams), descending stairwells and rusted doors, she found the Muddy Rudder about as hard to find as the first time she'd gotten directions to the place, but once surveying the crowded, tin-smelling bar, she spotted the greasy pile of dark hair, hunched over a shot of rich looking alcohol with a woman at his side.

The bruised blonde was speaking loudly, but past that smoky voice there was still the noises of half a dozen conversations and a skipping record player; echoing a heavy chorus of trumpets and sax. Most of the people drinking looked content, almost happy - most unlike the normal watering holes she'd been in. Why Butch had seem so abject about living here she couldn't figure - it wasn't like Megaton, wasn't like Underworld. People here seemed happy to be drinking and frolicking with the few women around. No one really pulsed with depression aside from Butch, who still seemed to be ignoring the smiling woman running a finger over his tan arm.

A drunkard bumped into her when she fitted a foot on the floor of the bar; an unwanted hand easily missing her upper thigh with a quick shove off his shoulder. She didn't have time for grabby drunks and he didn't look any older than her, which meant he was probably younger - young men didn't seem to know under which circumstances to back down like the older men did.

The record player skipped while she pinned him down with a violent gaze.

He grabbed the railing of the stairwell; teetering on one bent knee, staring at her. Obviously he wasn't fit for more than dragging himself back to his hole - his brown eyes wavered when she bared her teeth (looking like a wild animal normally got the desired results) and he did indeed turned with his body up the stairs after a few seconds.

A new song she'd heard a million times came on while she watched the boy disappear around a curved plack in the stairs.

When her eyes shifted to the bar Butch was looking at her over a shoulder; bottom of his face hidden in the lapel of his jacket. He looked worse than he did back in the hotel, and it was almost reminiscent how quickly he'd drank himself into a glassy-eyed stupor. The blonde on his arm didn't stop recounting a story she'd probably heard three times removed, even when she took a seat in the unstable bar stool at his side. He looked her up and down before tipping the shot back down his throat - the bartender filling it up without a seconds thought. Butch was either a passive drunk or no one cared how much he drank as long as he paid.

"Can we talk?", she didn't have to speak over the woman or the loud, boisterous music - he'd probably been waiting to see her mouth make those words for awhile judging by how quickly he stood up - the bar stool clattering to the floor and the bruised-blonde making a strange shrill noise when he headed straight for the staircase.

Her eyes locked with the blonde's blue stare, unsure of how to decipher the tight lips and shivering irises, but all she did was offer a fake smile anyways and upright the stool before following Butch as he hugged the railing with each step. Singular, small beads of sweat hung along the back of his neck; fitted between the hairs that were spread out in empty gaps until they cluttered into the thickness of that greasy pompadour. He must have been incredibly inebriated - the very thought almost made her nervous. Things were never easy with him - probably a problem more to do with her own psyche than him. He was the only thing she had as a flesh and blood reminder of the memories; memories that seemed like some strange dream.

"Can't believe you got some shuffler tagging along 'sides me. You always were weird, weren't you.", she didn't respond, just walked baby-steps behind him as he turned down an empty corridor. The sound of dripping water echoed like a vibration having been bounced for too long, but even though dank and cold - it felt safe and familiar.

Butch paused at a door she barely recognized as the one she'd left him in. Spray paint (a green-yellow color) had been marked on the bottom of the door in a crude drawing of a bowl movement, an arrow pointing over the door and along the bend of the floor. She didn't say anything, but felt ashamed for him, even as he fumbled with his key; a hand plastered on the dirty iron while that arm trembled against the weight of his body.

"Need some help", she finally asked after a wet curse left his mouth. He didn't answer, just shoved a shoulder hard on the door. The whole act looked ridiculous, but the door slapped open after another pummeling and he stumbled inside before she could think of any condescending remark. Inside was black and incredibly cold - the smell like stale sewage but not excessively revolting. When he flicked the light on she stepped inside, and latched the door behind her.

"Wan' ah drink?", he slurred, and she declined, watching him fish out a practically empty bottle of vodka behind the bedside table. Butch didn't look like Butch in that moment, as he plunked down on the edge of his bed to finish off the alcohol like a tired old man – he looked like his mother.

She wasn't sure what to say, though she didn't think she'd ever known what to say to him, even when they were kids. It was easy to hate him, but just as easy to feel worry for him as well; justify his action because his mother and her complete disregard for him.

"I think you owe me an explanation - or a pity fuck...not sure which one I want. You smell pretty bad.", he said it all to the floor with the empty bottle barely held in his fingers. She couldn't smell herself, but she could easily smell the aroma of the room, and it wasn't at all pleasant.

"Can't say I'd want to fuck me, but the same goes for you too.", she muttered, taking a few steps further into the room - the memory of him hugging her hips as he took her from behind more tasteless than anything. She'd never fucked him before then, even in the Vault when she'd held that reluctant girlish crush on him - he didn't like her then anyways, only when she'd crawled back in the Vault with blood in between the grooves of her armor did he take interest.

"I'd fuck you now. I don't give a shit...about anything anymore.", he fell back on the bed, releasing a sudden wave of musk that was bitter and strong, but nothing like the death-scent Charon emitted constantly. She thought of the tall, foreboding ghoul even when she looked over at Butch.

"I wasn't going to do this, but out here it's hard to turn your back on someone like you...so why don't you tell me why you can't deal with this, before I leave.", she was harsh for a reason - he never responded to anything less.

He rolled up, glaring but behind that look their was a smirk, "I knew you'd come. Figured you were putting on a show for that zombie - you always did want people to think you were some badass bitch..." - it wasn't what she'd asked from him, but it wasn't unexpected either.

She'd tried at least, she told herself as she turned on her heel for the door.

The bed made this strange groan when he stood, and the fingers grabbing her shoulder pulled a similar sound out of her - the feel of his hand was horrible; cold and thin. He was drinking himself to death like his mother would have eventually done.

"Don't leave. I'm...sorry I guess.", he seemed coherent enough to see she didn't want him touching her - his hand dropped to his side as his other slicked back a curly cue that'd bounced free of his do. "Kinda feels like dream - you being here and all. Didn't think you'd ever come back."

She didn't say anything; figured it was better to stay silent so he was forced to either let her leave or continue, "Thought we'd had a silent agreement going on yah know - like 'scowering the outside and fighting dragons...or some shit like that.", his intentions seemed well, but he touched her again and didn't back off when she stepped back - just followed her until the door bit into her back as he held her shoulders. She didn't find this comfortable - any of it.

"Butch...please don't touch me.", the anger, she kept in her throat, but he didn't seem to notice she was trying to keep such wrath at bay.

"Come on", he moaned it, grabbed her head and she should have pushed him back then, but he looked like he did when he'd been shoveling all those hygiene products in a bag for her - almost happy. He was a weakness - no matter all the bad things she reminded herself with that he'd done to her, she couldn't just push him away so quickly, but he thrust that feeling away when he banging her head back with the force of his mouth on hers.

It was a drunken and stale kiss that made her tongue fold back in the bottom of her mouth, unwilling to even touch his tongue to get it out of her. She wrangled her face from his hand and his mouth, but he just pressed her into the countless lug nuts poking from the door while he ground up against her.

"What the fuck Butch!", she bucked him back but he slapped her against the door again and slobbered over her neck like some fucking dog. She was stronger than him, even if she was smaller - a well place slug against the side of his neck got him off her; curling in on himself with a hand holding his carotid artery.

She watched him stumble and fall to his knee - he was going to be dizzy for awhile, maybe even vomit, but that was fine, he probably needed to anyways. Slapping hard on that artery cut off the blood supply to the brain for a second or so, but it was always enough to disable someone long enough to escape - it worked especially well in places where it was better off to get away rather than spill blood. He gagged briefly at her feet, but didn't vomit - a pity.

The pity she'd had dissolved rapidly when he rolled back on his ass, scooting back until he hit the frame of the bed; a hand still cupping his neck as he burped up alcohol in mouth, swallowing it back down with a sweaty look.

He was drunk, she told herself, she should see him in the morning before she left just to give him a second chance, but even that felt like a personal lie.

Then - while she whipped of the slowly drying spittle on her neck - a funny thing happened; a funny-sad thing. Butch started to cry - he hiccuped with a mouth shiny and open; eyes watering and spilling slowly down his face. Suddenly things felt very uncomfortable, she shouldn't be witnessing this. A grown man crying was something she shouldn't see. Butch may have been as ass all his life (might have gotten worse in a very pathetic way) but he didn't deserve this. In all good consciousness she should have left and hope he didn't remember this; hope he could keep a small semblance of pride to get by, but she didn't.

She walked over to him and helped him up by an arm, got him to his feet and pressed him back on the bed. He made a hitched noise and looked up at her with wet eyes. He wasn't crying any longer, may have been a fluke occurrence, but those eyes begged her.

She tightened her lips, and looked away, but in the end it didn't hurt her to give him something before he fell into one of those drunken sleeps, and if he remembered anything he'd need something else to even it all out - so she kissed him. It was hard to ignore the acrid taste of stomach-acid-riddled-alcohol, but she felt better mentally doing it, and really she'd only even searched him out to make herself feel better.

He didn't stick his tongue down her throat like he had before, just kissed her like he'd done when she was just a teenager - even then he'd tasted of booze. She kissed him two more times - just small ones that meant little to her, but enough for him that he seemed to fall asleep without that scared look on his face. When he started to snore out his nose she washed her mouth out in his sink; sucking up radiated water and spitting it out straight from the tap.

In the mirror she saw the reflection of a familiar bag hanging on a broken towel wrack. The Vault sigil was embroidered on the flap, and inside lay all the soaps and glorious little things he'd helped her steal. Nothing had been used, even the bronze latch had been hard to open at first - like he'd never touched it. Good conscience told her to leave it, but she didn't have much of that - so she took it and left Butch asleep on his bed with the fresh smell of piss burning her nose. He'd have a hell of a morning, she knew that much.

* * *

><p>She graced the cold-humid halls in the dead of the afternoon hours. People crammed past her; cursing her as she continued on down the corridors in the very dead-center of the walkway. All that crossed her mind was that she'd be brushing her teeth with toothpaste, washing her hair with shampoo and shaving before succumbing to a blissful, guilt-free sleep.<p>

When she reached the hotel – the robot churning noisily along it's motors to greet her in it's broken voice - she stole a look over at the mast-locked door, behind which Charon slept.

Key-card in hand, she leaned up along her own metal door; staring at his own just across the lobby. It was fitting that she chose the more difficult path; needed and desired things from someone unconventional in every sense of the word. He wouldn't even share a room with her in a place like this; afraid or ashamed of brandishing her something foul by her peers. In a way he was akin to Grognak – a comparison she'd made a few times before; saving damsels and defending their honor, but in the comic everything was fixed with a cracked blade and a set of painted abs. Charon was similar but not, and the ways in which he wasn't were just as flattering as they were infuriating.

If she wanted to, she could pick the lock to his door and crawl into bed with him. What could he do? - besides allow her unless he wanted to make a scene of kicking a smoothskin out of his hotel room. She imagined him lying awake in the same style of bed as in her own room, watching the door as if he could sense the dangerous thought crawling along inside her cranium; waiting and watching. She could see him rigging up a trap system in case someone – especially her – decided to break the lock.

Slowly, she smiled; thrusting her card in its additional slot with eyes still on his door, even as she slipped inside the darkness of her room with pleasant thoughts of lukewarm water and soap – she wouldn't kick in her sleep tonight, she refused.

Once inside Meatdog leapt off her bed and skirted to the opposite end of the room, knowing he'd been caught rubbing his greasy coat all over her sheets – the dull light in the bathroom all that illuminated her treasure of contents as she upended them while pinning a thin lipped look at the mutt wagging his tail. After bathing there was now an excuse as to why she wasn't sleeping in her own bed. Never before had she smelt anything as awful as what Meatdog could emit – a combination of rancid meat, rotting fruit, wet iron, and the bowl movements from a sickly mole rat. Terrible.

The shower she took was long and cold by the end, but the chill was worth it, and not only was she clean but so was Meatdog. She'd drug him in by the scruff of both his ears after mulling the idea over briefly; washing the green-ink slime from his coat until the water ran clear.

It was hard not to overuse her stash after lingering in her own filth for so long, especially after dumping a whole small bottle of soap on the mutt before scrubbing the thick fur with her nails. Some would say this pampering meant she had some feelings for the soggy dog, but realistically, she just didn't enjoy smelling the creature from his height at her thighs all the way up to her nostrils. She re-edified that thought with a kick to his rump before letting him bound out the shower; spreading pools of water throughout the bathroom, and no doubt everywhere else.

Used shampoo bottles and wrappers littered in soggy masses around her feet. Soap suds ran in gray clumps down the side of the stall and small fine hairs – hers and the beasts - turned the slippery tile a darker shade of metal, but her body was clean and smooth, and the sheer, bare slickness between her legs was something wholly special and cherished.

Once the smell of wet dog had evaporated into the harsh rose scent of shampoo, she slid two fingers between her legs, separating them along her cleft and squeezing pleasantly against her inner lips.

She moaned softly as her back slapped against the shower – the cold water stiffening her nipples to the point of pain, but the sudden idea of pleasing herself landed her with other, more complicated thoughts.

A dangerous idea – not at all new – centered between her two lobes as she licked up the cold water running down her lips. She cupped herself as she relished in the weightlessness that a clean body delivered. There really was no better moment; no better time to exploit than the now and the here.

"Charon.", she said to the backs of her eyes.

Quickly, she cut off the shower with a punch of her palm – the water ceasing and the air oddly warmer than the evaporation burning the water off her body. The moisture in her eyes was itchy and cast the bathroom in a blurry hue as the warmth seeped along the frozen, pink parts of her body.

There was no towel. Why bother drying off when normally you just slipped back into the same grimy rags you'd peeled out of? - but now she had pre-packaged bags of never-worn underwear, all blindingly white. The thin plastic wrappings rendered easily.

For a few seconds all she did was wrap her fingers in the clothing, enjoying the softness of clean cotton; downy and good enough she had half a mind to start gnawing on it.

Meatdog shook his body behind her, loudly slapping his wet fur in a fan back and forth until her legs were coated in dribbling water once more – it wasn't a bother though. Nothing was a bother with clean hair sticking to her neck and an incredibly soft, thin and unbearable white tank top sticking damply to her moist flesh. The cotton panties were just as plush – the feeling of just standing in them was unexplainable. It'd been so long, and the thought of how everyday and mundane this kind of thing had once been almost made her laugh in upset.

For the first time, in a long time, she felt like the luckiest person in all of the wasteland. She had the freedom of the wastes, the comfort of the vault, and the impending prospect of sneaking into a real-life Grognak's bed; clean and fresh.

Gently, she plucked at the thin fabric along her belly; staring off in the corner where her rank clothes lay in a pile that looked disgustingly wet and heavy. There really was nothing worse than trying to share intimacy while ignoring the strong smells of each other. Being clean, even if Charon still smelt like decay and old blood, would feel even better shared alongside him.

The clock on her Pipboy – set delicately on the bedside table even before finding Butch – read six-twenty-two.

Really, in a place like this, it wouldn't matter if someone caught an eye of her in these underclothes. As long as the threat of rape wasn't lingering on the glimmer of seedy eyes, she lacked most concepts of modesty...at least now she did.

The hotel had been dead before, and it'd been dead when she came back. Who's to say the hotel wasn't still near abandoned save from the two of them and the dog? She didn't answer her own question – was to busy unlocking her door and staring out at the empty lobby with only the malfunctioning Mr. Handy taking up space. Charon's door was suddenly extremely different looking than all the others – the paint chipped more, the rust darker, and the water stains more prominent around the trimming.

The lock was easy to pick, and breaking locks had never been something she'd excelled in – no matter how hard she tried. It was almost as if luck was on her side. She smiled ruefully as the bobby pin ran through the laser readings inside the key-card lock. A dim, green light popped on and the latch unbolted loudly enough to level the smile – if he was awake, he heard it.

Seconds went by and there was no sound – so, as easily as she would her own room, she slipped inside and closed the heavy door behind her.

Pride. Competence. She nearly forgot the earning for med-x when her fingers locked the door with a small push a button – the confirming blink of noise only affirming what the red light said, but all those heavy emotions went on hold when a dense grunt bellowed across the room.

* * *

><p>Hope it wasn't too slow. Please review if you have the time, and thanks for reading regardless. (I don't live for feedback, but I do grow big and strong on it).<p> 


	5. Wet

As promised, here is the remaining portion of what should have been one normal sized chapter, but painkillers (no matter how helpful at times) can have other effects. I wrote too much, but I like to think no one will complain about that. This is indeed a steamy chapter, there will be others like it until the story ends, and I'm unsure of when that will be.

Enjoy please, and review if you have the time (they are individually held, appreciated, and eventually digested to be popped out as inspiration) - so thank you to all those who reveiwed already, and if your just a reader please do drop a note (anons are accepted). Next chapter wont be so quick, or maybe it will, who knows.

Don't own Fallout. (how sad...no really, it is sad)

* * *

><p><em>T<em>_wo months after Enclave surprise attack..._

_The wind blowing off from the dry basin in the east had literally opened up the flesh of her cheeks; fine grains of sand pressing into the bloody cracks as she pressed on. It was just a few steps until the saftey of the Metro - the mutants would be behind her and the brainless ferals would be before her, she'd be trapped with murder and extermination the only way out. The cave like grave of the subsystems was safer than most other places, even with hiding Raiders and feral ghouls, pitch darkness and skillfully laid traps - it provided a haven from the elements. Some would say the tight spaces were a hindrance, but she found close quarters easy to work in after only a short time...after all, it was part of her natural environment, adding gun to the mix wasn't overtly difficult._

_Green was normally the only light she went by at night. Inside the metros it was no different than when the sun fell over the horizon - it was dark, but the kind of dark where even the lasting flouresent lights did little but expose the ceilings; showcasing the countless small bugs flying and crawling with sickly feet and dusty wings._

_Light from a fire tickled the walls down below; a sure sign of life._

_Times like these were where Stealth-boys came in handy. Below, a group of raiders stood silently around a blazing fire - the reflecting light whisking along the old concrete walls like a sharp mimic of water; painting their oily fronts with brilliant orange. They were all covered head to toe and dumb struck before the fire. All of them were males, and all of them carried empty plasma rifles on their hips - bone dry, or at least very close to it. She could make out the yellow flashing button on one that said the gun was close to being worthless, another had one with no charge at all - as if the red had been flashing so long it'd just withered away._

_They had to have been the strangest group of raiders she'd ever seen. They wore hockey masks pulled over on their heads, goggles over their eyes, bandanas wrapped loose around their faces and peices of mismatched armor and buisness attire that looked as strange as it would have sounded._

_With a few simple taps - unlocking the mechanism on the Stealth-boy - a creamy feeling covered her like a haze. _

_She saw her arms crinkle through the scene down below, much like as though she were made of thick liquid. Something about being completly hidden felt not only safe, but incredibly good - like she could do anything, no matter how impossible._

_The escaltor was clumped with rubble and debris; easily avoided with a few wide birthed steps. She hovered around the group of raiders, sticking to the shadows. They remained motionless and stiff. It didn't occure to her that something was off until she saw the white plastic texture of an open male collar. She stood stuck beside the fire; gapeing._

_They were maniquens..._

_She stepped directly before the fire - forgetting the glimmer of light outlining her as she touched a finger tip to the hard surface of a plastic chest. The figure teetered back, then forward on unstable feet, clattering loudly to the floor - the hard sound was proceeded instantly by a bight-green (almost blinding) arrow of light, which whispered along the hairs aside her face. A laserblast broke off in a burst of light; slapping one of the fake raiders on it's back. A lone hockey mask flew and clattered across the room before another shot missed her by a bare fraction. _

_The fear made her lips vibrate hard over her teeth. Adrenaline gushed through her veins and once more she felt wholly alive - it wasn't just one, two, three anymore._

_Two nasty raiders appeared from the darkness under the platform; snarling teeth and lifted lips hating her even though they could barely see her. Their sheer presence reminded her of uncaged mutts. They looked worse than feral ghouls, more human, but in the worst of ways. Was she really this bad at sneaking around? - even after all the time she'd spent slipping around corners and stealing from unsuspecting persons - or maybe she'd known it was a setup all along. No one alive stood so still for so long, especially raiders._

_She needed to feel like the air inside her lungs wasn't just filler. She needed to look at what was infront of her and truly see it again, but most of all she needed a reminder that she had some purpose, even if it was just pumping round after round into the scum of the Earth._

_A third blast hit the ground just a foot to her left - the last catalyst in getting her assault rifle off her shoulderto stuff it inside the guts on an unsuspecting raider. He'd been so close to her it was almost amusing seeing the wide-eyed gape of pain and surprise as a spray of bullets shot through the soft flesh of his stomach; blood spraying behind him as he balked backwards on the floor. Her hands stung beautifully from the kick of the gun._

_The second one shot a weak beam where she'd been, but she'd abandoned that spot as soon as his fellow had fell and even though she missed half the shots aimed for the last one, he fell just as quickly as his partner; knees collapsing and body slumping foward in a weird bend. _

_A weak sound squeezed out of one of their throat; the closest one - it sounded much like a pressurized tank running low till empty._

_Only now - when she was positive the dying sound indeed meant death fell around her - did she feel her heart beating wild under the straps of her leather armor. The whole occurence had been freakish, but she was alive - yet again, and even though the smell of death became as overwelming as it was warm in the heat of the fire, she couldn't help but smile as the rush of pure adrenaline became only a source of pleasure rather than a source of survival - it was waning, but there was no doubt the hum in her veins was addictive._

_Death - when so close, was practically akin to something unbearably sweet - could have been because of the adrenal glands pumping erratically, the knowledge that life hadn't left yet, or maybe it was a combination that left her saliva seeping like honey. Regardless the reasons, almost being caught and killed may have had the possibilty of being a behavior she repeated in the future...maybe, just for the simple rush - the simple act of forgetting what was hard to forget...if only for a few moments._

* * *

><p>"What do you think your doing, smoothskin?", he sounded as though he'd actually been asleep; voice even more guttural and brutal than usual.<p>

Without turning from the door, she glided a finger down the metal frame of the door, shrugging one shoulder loosely, "Figured it'd be ironic of you to throw me out now. A bit of an under-handed move on my part..." She turned to see him sprawled out on the bed – one that had seemed more than large enough in her own room, but with him it looked exceedingly small. He had an arm under his head, another draped over his stomach, and – she noted almost transfixed – he was dressed down. Beside the bed lay coiled belts, bracers, guards and more crumpled leather.

Sure, she'd seen the extent of ghoul flesh when she'd been with Desmond, and had seen arms and legs quite often while visiting Underworld, but the mildest bit of skin she saw now was as intriguing as seeing what a ghoul's dick had looked like the first time. He had a raw look to him, even along the thick looking skin he had left; red, almost as if it was sore or irritated - it was safe to say that no one (ghoul or otherwise) looked anything like him.

Charon - always seeing but rarely speaking - glared; noticing her look. He sat upright quickly, crossing his legs and sheltering his hands between them with an unreadable look on his face. It was hard to imagine him in such a relaxed but tense position.

Her eyes gleamed over the pock-marked black shirt stretched over his chest (or one that had at once been black) - it looked incredibly thin, old, and dull, but the rough cuts of muscle and skin didn't hide well underneath the clothing.

Was it really so wrong for her to find the sight of him more appealing than someone like Butch? - had it been like this always or did the sliver of brain missing from her skull have some part in it? The truth of the matter is that she'd never know the real culprit, and – even though his eyes flickered with mirth at her silence – she realized she didn't care about an answer.

"Could I sleep with you?", she asked; voice as steady as she could manage with the trembling in her chest. She needed something or someone. If Charon refused her, she may actually (against all self respect) resort to Butch – so desperate and so unwilling to shoot up more dope, especially not after the front-row seat she had for what Charon had done to her stash. He'd doped himself up that night for some reason, whether she knew that reason or not she wasn't going to brush off it's significance.

For a full minute she stood in the blindingly white underwear, staring down at the impervious ghoul; awaiting an answer.

His head turned away from her; eyes staring away at nothing before he gestured with a rough quirk of his head to the small available spot besides him. Something warm leaked into her chest then; something more addictive than the med-x, the violence and the anger. Quicker than she should have, she cleared the distance and keeled into bed, catching his off-sided gaze before settling in beside him; hands curled to her chest in a passive show.

* * *

><p><em>Six months on the outside...Megaton...<em>

_"I don't normally get paid for this.", the whore said; cold and seeped with other intentions regardless of what she had paid her for. Nova wasn't the best choice for this. Her arms were thin and her body wasn't as comfortable as she'd needed, but any embrace at this point was almost savored; cherished._

_Rough nails - probably the result of biting teeth in a drug haze - scratched softly down her arm, but the act wasn't doing more than making her stomach curl unpleasantly._

_"Stop that.", she almost hissed; forgetting to level her voice, but Nova was probably used to worse, and ceased to do much more than sigh and hold her on the creeking bed. She'd paid for an hour, and an hour of this pathetic moment was what she'd get - it didn't matter that her step-in man was a women, or that this women was trying to grind her body along her back, even though she'd told her not to...nothing really mattered as long as she closed her eyes and pretend things were different. _

_When she shut her eyes - imagined it was her Father holding her or maybe it was a lover who just enjoyed the feel of her in his arms - when she imagined other things it was easier to ignore the female shape at her back, the rancid smells of old semen and sweat, and the rowdy chatter downstairs at the bar. Everything eventually carried on a muted sense; hollow and to be filled by her imagination, but just as she latched onto the perfect scene Nova had to fucking speak._

_"The wastes must get lonely. I suppose it effects people from underground differently than everyone else.", her lips brushed the shell of her ear, and immediatly she jerked away from the contact; disgusted with knowing how many filthy cocks had slipped between them. __"Maybe you just want to play, and fuck do I like a girl who doesn't give it up so easily. Men are so...predictable.", Nova wouldn't shut up, and wouldn't take the hint when she slapped her hand away; a hand that kept kneading rough along the muscles of her stomach. Her fingers - so thin and bony - reached between her legs and rubbed circles deep and hard over the coarse fabric of her pants._

_She felt spittle leak out the side of her mouth; teeth bared as anger and unwanted pleasure spiked up her belly._

_"Fuck off!", she screamed - knowing the throng of people down at the bar could hear her shrill, spit strewn curse. She ripped herself from Nova, scrambling off the bed to fall on her knees in a clumsy and awkward mess of limbs with the raw feeling of her fingers still between her legs. "Can Moriarty not beat it into you!", she spat over her shoulder while getting to her feet, " - you get paid to do as I fucking ask. I figured out of everyone in this place, aside from Gob, you would understand."_

_No mater how hard she rubbed at her own crotch, she couldn't get the feel of those thin fingers off her, "...don't you want someone to just lay next to you for awhile?"_

_It was then that Nova reminded her of her age. The look that shadowed over the normally attractive red-head became creased and old so quickly that it actually made her cringe. The smells of the room decided to brand themselves in her nose then; cutting so deep she could taste it on her tongue._

_"What kind of good would that do.", the older woman rubbed a hand on her thigh; old dirt smudging underneath the hose she wore. "You think getting a taste of what you can't have will sate your struggle for it - no...just makes it harder each day when you don't have it."_

_She watched as Nova reached across the bed - her body stretched and looking unbearably thin in that moment - while grabbing at a half-empty canister of jet. With a wheeze of pressurized air and a rapid inhale, she witnessed the green eyes grow blood shot and sickly. It was disgusting having to witness the roll of those eyes and the quivering lower lip, as the woman stared between her own legs; readjusting the old fabric of her underwear._

_"Take your money back, complain to Moriarty. I don't care. Know that when you leave, your life goes on.", Nova seemed to smile, but that twitching lower lip didn't seem to fit the picture of a smile, even a bad one, "You think you got it hard, huh? Must feel good to find things to worry about."_

_At that she watched her light up a smoke she'd pilfered from under a thin pillow. Even a whore didn't want what she wanted; didn't want even a fake sense of comfort for just one measley hour. This world was horrible - the people in it horrible, but there had to be someone that hadn't been burnt out on the radiation, the disease and the murder yet...had to be._

_With a fickle smile of her own she left, but not without leaving a small canister of jet from her bag. If this was all Nova wanted then it was least she could do - another good deed amist all the bad ones._

* * *

><p>"You smell strange.", he groused over her just before lying back down on his back; his size causing her to bump against him in another stream of warmth.<p>

"I showered."

"And the...", his off-blue eyes fell along her underwear; his mouth closing abruptly and his eyes finding her face in some form of irritation or mirth. He didn't seem intrigued in a normal male way by the lack of clothing she wore, nor by it's new state.

"It's from the Vault. I...", her eyes lowered to a large hole in his shirt; cluttered with smaller abrasions and loose strings – it looked like an old bullet hole, "...I stole them from that guy from the lobby."

If he was curious at all about the details of why or how, he didn't ask – just gave her body another quick study before setting his mouth thinner and his eyes less tired.

"This smell stolen as well?", even with the hardend look, his voice was – thankfully - less so.

"Technically they're both mine, but I'd rather not talk about this right now.", she reached a hand for his chest; fingers less than a centimeter from the old, ruined shirt before a rough hand grasped her wrist roughly.

"You think you were just going to walk in smelling like this, dressed like...this and I wouldn't ask questions? The contract doesn't restrict my curiosity."

No – she didn't think he'd ask much, but she also hadn't thought that hard about it. Aside from hoping he'd just finger-fuck the withdrawals out of her – no, she hadn't thought about much else. A man like Butch wouldn't have questioned any of it, but wasn't that one of the reason she found Charon more solid than anyone else? He not only didn't fall for things like this, or blatant advances, but for all his short conversations and in-lue-of-speech-grunts, he was more heroic than anyone she'd come in contact with, inside and outside of the Vault ,aside from her Dad.

So – under his intense gaze – she admitted about her familiarity with Butch; about the reasons he'd been angry in the lobby and that she'd tried to reconcile with him but left after clocking him out, and about how she'd left with the bag of things he'd helped her pilfer from her vault. She'd even confessed to the mental desire for a shot of med-x; one fixation she'd been trying to ignore, and Charon just watched her solemnly as he let her push her fingers in and out of the hole in his shirt.

His lengthy silence after her long explanation wasn't as uncomfortable as she'd assumed, though she still waited for something, she was content enough to lie beside him; finding solace in the physical contact.

"What do you want from me then?", his voice was fordable and grated as he watched her fingers pause on his stomach.

She didn't have to think hard about her answer, but if it was fair of her to say it truthfully or not, she wasn't sure. It was hard to lie to him though. Everything about her life for the past two years had been so lonely, even with people all around her – it had been as if it was only her, and then she'd talked to him. Christmas had been a tease. She wanted him, and she'd probably known it before kissing him, even before he'd pulled apart her gun and she'd watched on with envy and enthrallment.

With her arm snaking out along his abdomen, pulling herself along his side to smell the heavy musk of wet-leather and sour sweat, she admitted, "Everything."

She stiffened as he shifted on his side, dragging her closer with those large, scratchy hands under her shoulder blades. The rough skin of his palms against the bare skin of her shoulders, and through the thin fabric of her top made her shiver hard. If he held her all night she'd have been as happy as any fat-cat in Tenpenny, but one of those palms grasped the meat of her arm and a barely audible groan resonated against her chest.

His eyes were slanted; watching her keenly.

When that hand drifted down to one dimple above her rear – sharp finger dipping into the small groove – she figured he had at least similar hopes as she. Just this, almost innocent, caressing was making her heart thrum fast; like suicide-run-fast.

"Charon?", it wasn't meant to be a question, but he muttered under his breath as if to ask her 'what'.

A fissure in her chest gushed forth that warm feeling – the more it leaked the more the stream of comfort expanded until it felt like some creature hibernating away on the bliss his hesitant touch created.

"Have you ever made love before?", the word on her ears sounded almost offending, but he didn't wince as she almost did.

"No. Have you?", his head dipped down as he exhaled hot breath over her clean, damp hair – the wetness sucking up the heat greedily; ears tingling.

"Only if dreaming counts."

The arm under his head shifted out, brushing her cheek and running up under her neck as she lifted her head to accommodate the new hard pillow of his bicep. He scooted down slowly, almost slow enough that she hadn't realized it until his chapped lips were on her forehead; steady and hot.

"I don't want to fuck, Charon. I want to do it the way people who actually care about each other do – like those fake romance novels – like those holotapes they filmed before the bombs. ", she confessed under his chin; eyes closed as he pulled his mouth from her skin. The mild wave of panic – a result from the lack of med-x and the thought of Charon just rolling over – passed over her sluggishly.

"I've never done either."

"Ever?", she asked; unfiltered and lacking any forethought.

He just stared down at her blankly; a mask she'd seen often enough to know was some sort of defense mechanism. There were many things she could have said, but none of them would have sounded any better than some cheap line – so she took the tips of her fingers to his cheek before pushing her lips over his frown.

Just the feel of his chapped lips was enough – the parting of those lips a bonus, and the hard grasping on her hip something else incomparable with words.

His mouth worked less oddly than it had when she'd first kissed him. Under her own tongue, his slipped and curled; lips sealing along her own and teeth mimicking her small teasing bites. It was sloppy like their first encounter, but the clean state of her mouth left his bitter taste overflowing her taste buds; a taste probably no one would find erotic, but that sent her body keening against his.

She broke from his mouth, pulled in a breath, and gave his jaw a soft bite; his breathe coming out quick as her hands slid down his cheek to knead the exposed muscle in his neck. There was something to be said about a man (ghoul or not) that was as large and frightening as Charon, and yet as green as any young boy in matters like these. She thought of asking him about the length of his life, his contract and those that had held it in the past, but he didn't ask her of her own foregone memories, and she figured she could extend him the same courtesy, especially in this moment where he explored the length of her waist with small gropes and scratches.

"Is this something you want?", she moaned under his chin, kissing his neck and rubbing a tight seam between leathery skin and hard, dry muscle. Past the heat swirling like a vortex between her ribs, she actually felt worried. There was never a point in time where she'd been with someone she actually cared for. Did you reassure yourself they had similar intentions? - or did you accept body language? The problem was that such things sounded right without the contract between them – it wouldn't really matter since it didn't sway his decision in things like this, but she had to be sure.

He didn't answer – just pressed a hand down her rear to lift a smooth thigh jarringly over his hip, thrusting against her firmly. The act – as arousing and silencing as it was – didn't quell the nag. His hand on her thigh paused and skimmed up and down smoothly, but he seemed stiff under her hands suddenly.

"Whats wrong?", there wasn't any quelling the edge to her voice, both a symptom of worry and arousal. She pulled back to see him eyeing her thigh with a passive face.

"Your smoother than I thought you'd be...", the smallness of his voice had been enough for her to pause. His fingers rubbed her thigh as if he couldn't tell whether he liked it or not, "...too smooth.", he grunted while skimming that hand up under the back of her knee, pulling her groin against his own.

"Guess I shouldn't have shaved then.", she whispered before a small moan ran up her throat. For someone who wasn't familiar with intimacy, he was doing fine with curiosity; slow curiosity.

What he did next – with a thin concentrated look on his face – made her mouth open in a silent show of stupor. His hand slid up her thigh, grasped her rear roughly before those raw digits of his (so dextrous and thick) slipped into the back side of her underwear and brushed over the slick ready flesh. What was more shocking than his cocksure move, was that she was actually wet.

Even as he slipped a finger inside her – her body tensing around the intrusion and sucking him in further – she stared silently into the dull blackness of his shirt like she'd been struck by lightning. Every sexual encounter, including her hate-lust romp with Desmond, had been dry at the beginning, but the way Charon's finger slipped in and out – testing the sensations gradually – there was no denying she was dripping. How she hadn't noticed before, she didn't understand – however, when his finger curled in a odd angle, she forgot what she'd been dwelling on. It felt really, very good.

"Your wet...warm; very warm.", he stated, and his tone would have offended her if she hadn't been staring at his relaxed face and lidded eyes; his breath coming out shallow as it tumbled like a sunny throng down their bodies.

She felt the urge to kiss him again, so she did, and he responded immediately; finger becoming fingers inside her and thrusting deep, until he growled so heavy in her mouth that it felt as though she were the one rumbling.

Charon hefted her closer with that arm under her; his other cupping the heat between her legs as he bruised her lips like she desperately tried to do his.

This sort of activity had never gotten her off, unless she was the one doing it to herself, but the more his uneven skinned fingers slipped in and out – almost disappearing from her completely – she knew it'd have eventually unwound her...only eventually. Before when the finger-fuck seemed bold to even think about, she figured if she'd gotten it she wouldn't ask for more...but things had a funny way of growing greedy all too fast.

It'd only occurred to her, with his teeth and lips brutishly attacking her neck, that he'd pressed her on her back; body hovering over her's with those fingers thrusting unknowing but perfect between them.

She gasped loudly and pitifully when he removed his fingers – the removal jostling the bundle of nerves now swollen. He noticed the hightened reaction (the ever keen watchman) and went to brush the point of effect once more; a bunching of aged skin between his eyes expressed his confusion or maybe his intrigue, she couldn't decipher through the fog clouding her senses. "Yeahhh...congratulations...you found...", she tried harder than she should have to sound light, but he pressed with enough pressure to make her knee twitch and breath flush out loudly, "…it."

He almost looked smug – the very same look gracing his rotten face when he'd killed someone quicker than she could, or when she'd made Ahzrukhal look like the fool back in Underworld.

"What is...it?", he asked with a curdled drumming to his voice, while pushing her thighs open with one knee and staring dead between her legs where his fingers lay bunched under the damp white frabric.

"W-what?", her voice was shallow and a repetition of his word more than anything. She'd shut her eyes seconds ago as he rubbed and eventually pinched the numb with fingers that she'd personally witnessed fire a shotgun one handed. The thrill was deep seeded and only became bristling as he hooked both sets of fingers in her underwear, tugging sharply down. She lifted her hips quickly; muscles in her abdomen trembling and thighs just as bad as he left the damp fabric to circle around her ankle with an impatient grunt.

"If you don't know you really want this, then tell me now.", he peeled his eyes off the sight of her dewy, pink flesh to bore his gaze into her own – the milky blue she saw was hard to read, but his words were enough and the heavy line of his mouth only affirming that he needed confirmation as badly as she needed him.

He took his hands off her inner thigh and sat back on his knees, "No one does these things with a ghoul, smoothskin. I'd sooner expect you to let me fuck you from behind than kiss me. Tell me-"

She cut him off on her own knees, lips over his own and hands working diligently to get that poor excuse of a shirt off him. He yanked her back by the scruff of her neck, growling heatedly in a flip of moods that had her no where near as frighten as she was sorely aroused. Charon was real – not a white knight in shining armor, but one of those black knights with the glowing eyes and morals as chaotically neautral as her own.

He pulled at the strands of her hair hard when her hands tugged at his shirt again, but she just grinned painfully and shuddered out a moan to counter his frown.

"What about this doesn't scream I want you?", she groaned. His grip loosened but didn't let go as she gulped thickly. Those eyes flashed to the workings of her throat before aiming back to her wavering regard - he wanted her just as bad, had to have.

"If that bottle hadn't fallen would you have been my first ghoul?", he looked lost for a second and then that hold on her hair grew harsh again, making her eyes water.

When he leaned in – teeth bared and eyes hot – she had half a mind to imagine he'd bite her jugular out of her neck, but he drug his baking tongue up the underside of her throat sluggishly and bit down on her ear, "Say it, then.", he asked – no, demanded.

"I need you.", she sighed when his other hand molded her to him by the small of her back.

He breathed into her neck, exhaling in a shudder and giving the skin another wet lick. Even with the warning of his fingers in her hair, she busied at his shirt again, getting her hands under it to feel the landscape of his stomach; hard and uneven. There was a large disparity of skin where only hard, carmine muscles lay, but further up over his side were large expanses of leathered skin - all scorchingly hot.

"Say it again.", and this time it measured down to a plea.

"Make love to me.", she whispered, and with a strangled groan he freed her hair.

He let her take his shirt off, let her kiss the ruined and completely obliterated parts of him long enough that when he wanted to do the same, she'd already worked his pants open; already had her fingers curled tight around the throbbing flesh of his length, which - she noted ruefully - wasn't a 'trick of the eye' as Ahzrukhal had claimed. Height and size apparently played a factor after all, she noted with a kiss to his bare chest; hearing him make a heavy tenor of a noise.

It wasn't like all the other times she'd been with a man. Charon didn't know what he was supposed to do, he just did it how he wanted and even if he spent too long plucking at the tips of her breasts through her tank - trying to ignore the short strokes she gave between his legs - she eventually laid back and enjoyed the small pleasures. When he dipped his mouth over the pert peaks, first licking through the cloth and the next against bare flesh - that was a different thing all together.

Just like any man she'd known – even with the inexperience – he assaulted her breasts with touches both gentle and unwittingly abrasive. His lips were uneven and rugged even when wet, but that just made the soft sucks and swift brushes all the more sweet and tormenting. He tongued, pinched and squeezed until the ache actually descended between her legs when ever he plucked at the tan flesh, making it almost impossible to keep her moans silent. Even when she mewled for him to finally settle between her legs, he just bared his teeth in the closest thing to a grin she'd ever imagined and licked his way down her stomach to suck experimentally at the nub he'd found nestled between her thighs before - a behavior she hadn't expected.

It didn't take much. No one had ever done this to her – she'd never asked and no one had ever offered. If the strange circles his tongue made or the odd wide-mouthed sucks over her folds were not of the norm, she didn't care – it was better than anything since; wet, warm, and a thing she almost felt cheated by for not having experienced it sooner. When his tongue slipped deep inside her, she bucked away at the sensation; strong but dull and oh-so slippery at the same time.

He said something that made her stomach cramp with a spike of pleasure; something about her tasting a certain way that made him hungry. She didn't move when he kissed her inner thighs, just sighed until he made his way back between her legs to lap and suck like he were feasting on her.

When he ran his tongue hard under her clit, she bucked again, but this time he seemed prepared to hold her down. His hands bruised into her hips; thumbs denting against her hipbones while repeating the strokes in exactly the same way. She came then – white lightening striking and electrocuting in spasms up her stomach from the flickerings of his gleaming tongue. The orgasm vibrated like a ripple, and clamped down as tight as any mechanical vice. In a slow leak she flowed over his tongue and when he grunted and sucked along her opening, she could barely take it.

He towered over her after she begged him to stop; cheeks ruddy and eyes glazed and barely aware of how his tongue licked her arousal off his no-longer dry lips. She kissed him again; tongued the inside of his mouth – tasting the strange tang of herself crudely - as he pulled her hips into him. He was hot, but so was she by now; so goddamn hot.

Everywhere she was lost; disoriented by the tastes, the smells, and the rough skin against her smooth skin. When his bare length slid wet between her legs he seemed to balk briefly over her. He was awkward; needed her help in order to push him in the right direction, but the instant she guided the head of his thickness against her entrance, he didn't wait a second to push all the way to the back of her womb – the abrupt fullness making her back ache and her throat tight.

Charon didn't pause as she tensed around his girth, probably because he didn't know he had to, and – even though she curled her face against his shoulder and bit back the grunts against the onslaught of uncomfortable thrusts – she wouldn't have ever asked him to stop. Even if everything after this point was painful, it was the intimacy and the sheer motions of his hips brushing against her own that made her head throb like a second heartbeat.

His soft grunts in her ear sent spirals of heat down her core. The way he pawed at her hip and outer thigh with one shaking hand made her smile, and even though his other hand – pinned on the bed in her hair; pulling at the roots of each follicle - she didn't even wince.

"Charon", she moaned when the pleasure spiked deep below her navel; her inner muscles clenching around him as he tensed and exhaled.

"You...", he got out in a mass of moist, heated breath along her collar bone, "...raw, and tense." He grunted and picked up the slow rocking of hips to a deep and trembling pace – the bed starting to skid in its grooved metal frame, hitting along a gap in the wall like the frame would break or perhaps the wall even.

When he pulled from her chest, his eyes were glazed and his ruined lips were parted; dull, clenched teeth showing through the bruised red and dusky skin. He made some noise, along the lines of a growl and a whistle before hoisting her up from the bed, molding her to his scratchy hide and slapping her back up against the wall above the bed where he pinned her with an angled thrust – the wildness of it made her choke, but the lethal pleasure made her gasp.

At this angle, his forehead slid along the thin sweat along the front of her throat while he pounded her into the wall; running his hands up and down her sides and arms until each pass made her cry out weakly.

Charon knew when he was doing things right, but most importantly he knew when he wasn't. Removing his hands from her now over-sensitive arms, he made to thread his fingers in her hair, but she pressed her face to the side swiftly; cheek falling into his palm as he groaned out her name in the curve of her necl. She knew he was close, but her end was far away and content where it was. All she wanted was this, and no more. Climax would have meant an end to this, and it could have lasted for hours for all she wished. But a brash plea wafted down her stomach, drying and heating the sweat along her body, "Come." - the word harsh and demanding.

Her nipple disappeared in his mouth suddenly; teeth toying loosely and lips half open, letting in cool air against the high temperature of his mouth. The little jolt of pleasure from her breast, his grunting mantra (telling her to come, come, come) and the hard hold of her hips so he could pull all the way out of her before pushing back in over and over brought her end straight to the pit of her belly. It was nearly as scary as facing the business end of combat knife – how quickly she went from not even thinking of coming, to tipping over with legs shaking to fit around his waist.

"Oh'god!", with arms binding under his back and over his shoulder, she gasped; terrified at the descending rush filling up her abdomen like the waters of life overflowing.

She came, but only just after the hot flush of his orgasm seep hot in her belly; burning and flooding below the twitching muscles of her abdomen. The sudden complete sensation made her eyes water – a raw mixture of feelings, both physical and mental, creeping in under her singing skin. The climax was in a sense no different than the first one he'd given her; strong and wake-less, yes – but it was the stick of his naked muscles, his hot breath rushing out in pants, the sore throb against her back, and the warm stickiness fusing their lower bodies together, that made it epical.

There wasn't really much to say even if she could have thought far enough to make sense. Instead of lying back with her mouth dumbly open, she let out a nervous breath and brushed her palm to the hot rawness of his cheek. He twitched against the contact, but eventually – with a grunt - leaned into the touch as his eyes cracked open; white blue staring down her body.

On his heavy breath, he said her name; eyes still cast down her sweaty body as if he refused to look her in the eye.

The look on his face – no matter how tight and withdrawn – spoke volumes. He needed her to say something; anything, but she couldn't. She could have said she loved him, but she didn't. She should have reassured him; pushed back the growing crackle of nerves around him, but alas…she just ran her fingers down his jaw; touching close to the layers of muscle and of hard veins silently.

Through the dim glow of euphoria, she smiled when a callous on her thumb caught along a raised portion of scar tissue on his chin, but Charon didn't find it as endearing as she did. He grabbed her wrist – a mammoth of a frown over his mouth – and slammed her hand back to the wall at her shoulder. The mild pain wasn't even enough to pull her eyes all the way open.

The silence turned tense; heavy on her limbs and cold on her chest.

"Why…", she heard him swallow, "…did we do this?", he rumbled past clenched teeth; sounding more ashamed of her than angry. The tone reminded her oddly of her father and of those rare moments where he'd been disappointed, which never failed to hurt worse than when he was angry with her.

"Excuse me…?", it wasn't possible to build her voice up – it was small and hoarse, but somewhere in her chest a bubble of anger was brewing. He still hadn't looked her in the eyes, and something about it suddenly made her skin feel over exposed. He didn't enjoy this – she knew now.

"This is wrong. You should go - go shower again. Wash this off.", and with that he withdrew from her body; leaving her to moan as if someone had pulled a knife out of her back. He left her to slump back down on the head of the bed; hair wet with sweat and body chilling with the warm remains of their activities leaking between her legs.

She stared down at the smudges of old dust (residue from his body) and raised bruises where his mouth had sucked a bit too violenlty. There were small scratches here and there, but the sight didn't disgust her as it obviously did him. The world around her suddenly became a cold, desolate place again; a place where no one cared and where she'd made the wrong choices for the right reason once more.

"Charon.", she wasn't above begging him anymore. He had to serve her in battle, not in bed, and whatever she could bride him with to not turn his back on her, she'd place on the table. It wasn't even about the sex. Having someone who seemed to care was what hooked her like some dark, hidden trap of serrated spikes.

The sound of a zipper was somehow painful on her ears, and when he turned with his bare ruined chest – clad in hard muscles and tanned leather – he finally looked at her face. There must have been something on her that she didn't notice, because he paused and stared; fingers twitching. Whatever the reasons he stared intently for, she went to her knees and forced a smile, "We don't have to do this again; never again, whatever you want. It will be like it never happened, alright? – just…don't go mute on me again.", all he did was stare, but the icy trickle in her veins kept her babbling, "I need you. I need someone to care – it's human nature, right? It's not unheard of, we all need someone to care about."

"I care.", he confirmed gruffly; looking away at the corner as she moved out of bed, stepping softly and naked towards him like he were some wild animal ready to flee.

"Then…?", she made it to him, but stopped before pushing her luck. His eyes still lay past her even though they appeared looking right at her.

"Your confusing, but you know that, smoothskin.", this time his voice was hard but less malicious and his eyes honed in on her, even if it was reluctantly it was something that truly made her blood warm and lips curl.

"Can't say you're any better.", she took another step close and her heart nearly squeezed as he extended a half radiated arm – thick as any Deathclaws – and pulled her by the side of her neck against him. The feel of his skin sent her stomach aflame. Her breasts flattened along his side; stomach scratching pleasantly over his hip. Nothing had ever really felt as good as Charon's skin did against her own, aside from maybe his dick, but that was something she'd bite her tongue over if it meant he'd be as he was before; before when he'd mended her finger.

"Do you want to tell me what just happened?", she asked quietly into the exposed muscle of one of his pectorals. She'd said it casually while the tips of her fingers strayed to the skin peppering his stomach.

"I don't need to feel good, not with you, there is something wrong about it.", he may have said that, but his fingers tugged and scratched along the back of her scalp in equal time with his words.

"I agree it's uncommon to feel better than the world we're festering in, but…", she rolled against him, wrapping her arms around his middle, but only barely, "…it doesn't have to be something wrong. If you enjoyed it then what about it is so troubling?- can't just be about the contract."

There extended a moment of silence where he just breathed and she just listened to the hard throb of his heart.

"How old are you?", he asked bluntly; raw fingers stilling in the strands of her hair.

She couldn't lie to him, but at the same time she figured he'd use her age to prove some point – as if in a world like this her age meant something immoral – she could have scoffed.

"Twenty-one.", she muttered between his ribs and waited stiffly, despite feeling the powerful urge to lick the sweat of herself off him.

"I've lived that almost eight times. Not once have I had a smoothskin crawl in my bed with small things on…let me touch and…taste.", he still sounded annoyed, but his fingers had resumed their innocent toying and tugging and his hot breath was rushing over the top of her head as though he'd leaned further over her.

It might have been the quick return of base lust, but – even though it would have been best to let him eventually explain himself – she couldn't stand not knowing then and there. "Is it the age thing? – because I'm not a ghoul? – or something else I can't fucking change?", it was said without spite, but Charon's grip became hard in her hair nonetheless. The skin of his chest left her lips, as he pulled her head back firmly; leaning down over her. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth partially open but no where nearly friendly.

"You don't know any better, smoothskin. Your lust is derived from head injury and loneliness, nothing more, and I should have known better.", he let her go then, pressed her arms away when they tried to keep him there and pushed her aside to gather his shirt from the floor.

She watched him stretch his arms through the black material – her body thrumming with humiliation. It'd always been her to walk away after these things. To be on the receiving end of rejection was truly something as depressing as it was enlightening. Suddenly she realized how Butch felt, and how harsh she'd been; how uncaring. The now cooling wetness seeping down her inner thighs was just a reminded of how good everything had felt just twenty minutes ago, and in-turn was just another poke at how reverted things were now.

She'd leave, but she wouldn't leave without a final say, "You know…", he turned to stare an eye in her direction as he rolled the tattered shirt down his slim waist; covering the sculpted muscles, "…I'm not some naïve girl."

She went to grab her damp underwear from the sheets of the bed as he took a steady step backwards, "I've survived for two years out here, most of the time alone, and not a day went by that I didn't wish someone would come around that wasn't just waiting for me to let my guard down - just waiting for a free meal..."

The now cold moist fabric in her palm felt like ice, just as Charon's eyes did against her face.

"Life alone didn't have much meaning after my Dad died…but…even he'd never been around to hold my hair back when I puked. It made me feel a bit less small in the grand scheme of things. No one cares about anyone else in this world, right? But I care, and you care."

Dull eyes still stared at her but didn't say anything. She gave a hard smile down towards one of the many holes in his dull shirt, unable to look into that murky stare without itching for a stiff dose of med-x. But after all the depressing scenarios of the coming sleep fell through her mind – a scratchy hand pulled her wrist into a loose hold; stopping her from grabbing for her shirt hanging off the bed. He looked down at her with a firm mouth, but open eyes.

She couldn't say anything else when he pulled her into bed, couldn't get her mouth to stay down, couldn't even shut her eyes once he'd slapped the light switch on the wall; shrouding everything in a stark darkness, but she could push a hand up under his shirt as he drug her in; letting her curl up with his heavy arm draped limply over her.

She laid in the pocket of warmth around him; naked but without the cold she normally would have felt. Charon's heart was strong against her nose; thudding faster than her own, and as if her own heart was trying to catch up she felt exhaustion fill her bones.

He said nothing, but if she squinted in the dark she could have sworn he was watching her. Sleep though, was impossible to defend against when everything didn't feel so terrible.

* * *

><p><em>Age fifteen...Vault 101...<em>

"_I don't see the point in all this. It's not like we really have a choice in who he puts us with anyway.", she sucked in her lower lip as her Dad combed a few stray strands from her face; spit probably on those fingers too._

"_Try not to look at it that way, Sweetie. The future isn't set in stone and if anything, you can at least try and make this night about having fun with your friends. It doesn't have to be what your making it out to be.", he always knew what to say, but after the years his soft words and comforting smile didn't throw a shine to the staleness any more. She'd go, but she'd only go for him. A night of a one-girl conversation with Wally Mack and Butch didn't sound at all pleasing._

"_Now. Let me look at you.", he turned her to face him; supporting hands on her arms and a proud look on his face that always made her crack her own smile. "See. You're beautiful, and any man would be lucky to stand in your presence.", he put a hand on her cheek and she looked down; disbelieving of his words. If he were right than why didn't Butch do more than try and make her pick her own nose?_

_Besides, he had to say she was beautiful – that's what Dads did._

"_It's hard not to look at you and see your Mother sometimes. You look so much like her, right down to the adorable button nose.", he plucked said nose between his two fingers and squeezed lightly, making her pull back, laugh carelessly and eventually sneeze; eyes watering and nose runny._

"_Bless you.", he muttered before standing upright, moving that stubborn strand of hair from her face and smiling once more._

_She thought ahead to the miserable time she was about to endure; wishing above all that he'd just let her hide under her sheets with a comic and his old flashlight. Maybe she could pretend she was eight again; pretend she didn't have to go to some stupid Ball that had no more meaning than Mr. Brotch's Goat Exam._

_As if her Dad could read her mind, he spoke firm words, "It's hard growing up, but it happens to everyone. One day you'll see that it isn't all that bad. Ours lives are good lives. We have each other and as long as you have friends and family, nothing can harm you."_

_She rolled her eyes and let a sad smile curl her lips while she itch against the loose seam on her hip – the dress made for her was too big, but at least it hadn't been pink like Amata's. She imagined the indignified look on Amata's face right now - her dad was probably doting even worse than her own. But when a wet thumb came to rub into the side of her nose she scoffed and stuck out the tip of her tongue. Dad was getting sappy quick, and she found - all too suddenly - wishing he'd just rush her out the door to get this night over with._

_"I guess I'll live then.", she murmured, looking down and letting that same stubborn piece of hair fall in her face again. He pushed it back as he always did and perked her chin up with his curled thumb._

_"We'll stay up and watch a holotape when you get back - one of those western ones. Promise."_

_At that she smiled truly, already looking forward to the twangy music and stand-offs. He always knew – if words didn't get the desired results – that bribing helped with her._

_"Alright, deal. I'll have fun. Promise.", she grinned despite herself, and itched again at the broken seam before wiping her runny nose. She bid her Dad a goodbye with an exaggerated bow and spun around the door frame to peel down the corridor for Amata's; cowboys and outlaws responsible for her quick skip down the corridors._

_As long as she had her Dad, she figured mundane life couldn't be so unbearable – after all, if he did it with a smile on his face, why couldn't she?_

* * *

><p>More steam to come, but I do miss the violence and grit lacking in the past two chapters, expect some of that in the next instalment. I hope none of you have minded though. Don't forget to review, unless of course your running late for work...no one likes an angry boss.<p> 


	6. Fungus

Been a while in between updates, but I must admit it's a fault of mine to loose my way halfway through a story. I tell myself that wont happen with this one, even though I've went on a run with it. Updates will come about once a week, maybe every week and a half. I plan to take this to the end of the game, so get ready. By the way, before reading, just know that those reviews tugged at my heart strings (what few I have), so thank you to those that took the time - can't put into words how much they help me write.

Don't own Fallout, but hopefully you enjoy this anyways.

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><p>"What would make you think this is even edible?", she said it more to the faintly florescent, pulsating green algae growing forth from a crack in the cave than to him.<p>

It'd been a lucky occurrence to find their current hide out, but as things were now, it was hard to find anything lucky about the eerily, derelict hole. Fresh water drizzled from razor thin crevasses, stalactites and fissures in the ground where it pooled around the sole of her boots. Around them both - including the useless mutt drooling audibly - was a sight of harsh contrast against the world outside, it was dark, cold, and colored with faint speckles of slick rock that exposed a blue of Earth seldom seen anymore. Her eyes lay on a gathering of stumpy green plants; glowing and festering from fuzzy rancid looking mold. The wisps of luminous vine-like arms curled oddly and sprouted out fine hairs that were dotted with moisture.

"It was in the stomach of the molerat you gutted this morning.", Charon's voice was the same as it'd been all night; empty and famished, just like her own.

With Meatdog having shredded open half of their preserves just the day before, they'd only eaten a molerat pup; more bones than grizzle or meat really. Right now – staring at the flora Charon suggested eating - it seemed stupid to not have fileted the dog then and there. The mutt may have been mostly hair and bones, but it'd be out of as much the need for food as for revenge. Charon – however, had seemed adamant about not harming the beast. Why? - she didn't know, but the dog didn't like her, and the feeling was mutual, feeling it turn to fuel in stomach would have been quite enjoyable.

Charon eyed the growth and gave it a testing tug between two fingers – it stretched and sprang back into a bright curl much to her disgust.

She sneered silently as she took a handful of the slop off the wall – most of it finding home under her fingernails with a wet-cold sort of sponge-like feel. If anything, it looked more unappealing than the stuff that bubbled out of that molerat's stomach when they'd cooked it – the raw form was worse than the partially digested and re-heated variant.

"I think I'd rather starve.", and she fully planned to. Smearing the slimy plant on an abrasive rock, she made a grumble of her own that had transformed over the weeks into one more common on his tongue, and turned to the center of the cave, dropping down over a pile of campfire bed rolls like they were high class mattresses. It had been a long day of climbing, crawling and evading the local wildlife. Deathclaws still managed to pull at a few instinctual fears that would have had her loosing her bladder if she hadn't also been dehydrated earlier – but the water here was clean and abundant. She wouldn't die for lack of thirst, that was for sure.

"Suit yourself.", she heard him mutter, also hearing the scrape of his combat knife along the wall – no doubt hacking off the weird nappy plants like they were ripe fruit. He came to sit beside her and proceeded to eat them in front of her – the sight as disgusting as watching a man suck down the beating heart of some child. Sticky bright green trails dripped off his chin; their luminous glow only adding to her point that they probably weren't safe, at least not for her. Ghoul biology probably helped him get by on things normally evolved to kill her, or at least give her a terrible case of diphtheria.

"If you feel like your dying do let me know.", she snorted in his direction; fiddling with the radio beside the lantern to drown out the sound of him slurping up the algae. There was little but static, and her Pipboy was no different. They had a few hours left until nightfall, and even then they'd wait another two just to be sure the prowling lizards were dozing.

"They're not poisonous.", he grumbled again – having finished them off with a sour look as he wiped the green off his mouth, "That doesn't mean they taste good though."

She let out a small laugh; something that felt good enough to do again a few seconds later, even if he did give her a wary look with his eyes. They shared a moment of silence while the radio fizzled and died off and on while Meatdog kicked small pebbles with the sleep-motions of his matted feet. Charon peered over at the dog when it gave a strange breathy whistle and skitted quickly as though somewhere else in its imagination it was running fast and gallant.

"I really do hate that fucking dog.", it was meant to be malicious, but it came out nothing of the sort as she glanced back to the glowing lantern. Perhaps, she figured - as her fingers picked at the laces on her boots – now was the time that they ate the mutt. Surly she wouldn't resort to cave fungus on the beasts account – not when their were some good-sized chops kicking as the delicious thought ran a muck in her smaller-brain.

And as if Charon saw the famished and equally diabolic glint her eyes, he let out a heavy exhale, "You eat him now and you'll wish you'd kept him around later." She didn't bother looking at the probably vaguely, amused look on his face; instead she removed her boots and socks, following them off with the leather jacket Charon had yanked off a dead prospector just two days ago; a jacket which she folded loosely on a steep rock.

They were going to be stuck in this cave until the Deathclaws outside settled in for sleep, so until then she decided comfort and entertainment were key. She wiggled her toes, rubbed the soles of her feet and began pulling small drinks from a bottle of bourbon. She almost expect Charon to light up a cigarette and join her, but the sound and the smell never came, and she was too busy massaging her feet to give a damn.

She rested back on the bed roll, her bag propped up behind her head to elevate the disillusion that the alcohol brought – lying down and drinking only made her lethargic. Dimly, she allowed her eyes to settle, telling herself it was only for a moment or two, but knowing there was the very real potential for that same drunken sleep she tried to avoid finding.

Even with the warmth of the alcohol, the cave was cold, but already she was feeling sweaty and dirty again, and even with the lack of layers she still felt heavier with grime than yesterday. She had half a mind (almost literally) to take a whores bath with the spring water they'd systematically had the pleasure of stumbling upon, but the only clean clothes in their sack were ones she planned on saving for special occasions. They were only another three days away from Underworld, and she could shower and shave then, maybe even rile Charon up for some rough housing if his distant attitude shifted in that time.

With a glance towards her ghoul companion – who appeared none the more dirty than she – she couldn't help noticing his vacant stare and the lack of perpetual stiffness in his face, but the oddness dwindled as she smirked at the memory of why he looked less filthy than usual. Again her eye lids hovered a centimeter from sealing as her mind wandered.

Another sip of the alcohol and she was there again.

* * *

><p><em>The water wasn't hot, but it was warmer than hers had been; running down her back and slopping over her shoulders while the rest pounded weakly on the stiff man in front of her. Before he woke she'd brought the dog, food, and the rest of her gatherings into his room, all with enough time to crack open a box of instamash and fancy cakes for dinner, breakfast...whatever it was – and now he stood tall and imposing in the small shower stall with a cross look on his face. He didn't like water, she understood now, but understanding and respecting were quite contrastive.<em>

_For a ghoul that had a naked girl rubbing soapy fingers along the creases of skin and muscles, he sure wasn't keen to enjoy himself._

"_When was the last time you bathed?", she didn't really expect him to answer her – was merely saying it to fill the silence as the water continued running warm. The tang of the water tasted acrid, and it smelt like sulfur, but however mildly irradiated it was, it wasn't bothering her, and if anything the radioactivity of the water might lighten his rancid mood given a few more minutes._

_Grit, old blood and caked in dirt ran between them as she gave each patch of various flesh meticulous care and attention. Even when a certain area was fully clean and vaguely squeaky she lingered – the moment gave her time to explore the unique textures he seemed littered with. Each part of him was unlike the last and she found every part – right down to the smallest bump of exposed capillary – a spectacle in itself._

"_This doesn't have to be awkward you know...", she muttered – just as expecting of his silence as the water eventually running cold. He merely huffed out an exhale; water whisking with his breath down against her forehead while she rubbed a slippery hand around his side to get at his back. It'd been hard to convince him to bathe, let alone with her, and keeping up her promise of keeping things cordial she kept her own naked skin off him as she rubbed the grime away._

_There was some divots in his skin where hard bits of dirt had dried up, and with a little rub of her nail it loosened and washed away. It was funny how little he'd smelt now that she realized how much filth he actually had on him._

_When his chest and back were clean, she eased her hands up over his shoulders, trying to clean and equally massage the muscles but finding them – with no surprise- unbearably hard. The tense muscles weren't a ghoul thing, she knew that much, and by the way he kept motionless and steady – it appeared he was purposefully resisting the manipulations._

"_There's nothing that says you can't relax a little. Who knows when we'll have a chance to enjoy this again.", reasoning with him was useless, but after awhile of thumbing his almost exposed collar bone, he leveled his shoulders and dipped his head down._

"_I'm not used to it.", he replied almost darkly, but a heavy and wet hand rose at her shoulder; hovering before eventually falling back to his side. Charon didn't look any less unhappy with the shower ordeal, but his muscles gradually loosened as she clean and rubbed. Water dripped between them, in the corners of her eyes and through her parted lips as the minutes went by. The water remained warm and almost steamy – it was odd, but not odd in a way that she'd question it more than once._

_She'd gotten used to the idea of nothing much occurring in the shower besides two adults washing away the dirt and enjoying the warm stream, but things always had a way of bending against assumption._

_When she ran a slick hand down his sternum, Charon pulled her wrist in his hand – the rough skin actually soft and the muscles a little sponge-like. He stared down at her with a bleak expression even though he'd pressed his body close enough that the tips of her breasts scratched over his chest._

"_Don't you need to wash?", he spoke with eyes turned down on her, but chin held high._

"_I'm not dirty.", she murmured; eyes enjoying the rest in his locking gaze. A strange turn of his mouth made her give her own – it was like he took her words in, and found something funny about them._

_Silence passed and disappeared as he released her wrist and their continued movement in the shower lead to a spray of droplets hitting the metal wall loudly. He didn't grumble when she went to clean between the skin and muscle of his neck, nor did he protest when her hands pushed him down to his knees so she could wash the fine hairs on his head free of the muck._

_Her body pressed to his side; projecting her naked breasts from his leveled stare while she ran small drops of shampoo through his hair, lathing the rest of his scalp in the suds._

"_Might want to close your eyes."_

"_I remember.", he spoke into the water as it passed in a thin stream down his head, over his lips and around his muddy voice. The soap ran clean after a few moments, but he didn't return to his knees when she patted his neck in a gesture for him to rise. Instead of doing anything she would have assumed, he grumbled and wrapped his arms around her waist; soft ghoul flesh almost a strange squishy texture around her bare skin._

_He was warmer than the shower water; warmer than he'd been last night even. A small tremor seeped past his chest into her stomach when he squeezed her tight; arms wringing around her with his cheek squashed over the tops of her breasts. The moment was intimate, but she couldn't help feeling mildly confused and ambivalent as to what to do. Did she stroke his scalp while he nuzzled deep into the doughy flesh of her chest? - or did she remain as she'd promised?_

_In the end, he answered for her; responding to a question too delicate to ask with words. He didn't pull her down, but he did guide her on her own knees – where his arms slipped up to her arms and eventually her shoulders where he merely stroked the skin along her neck and on her cheeks. The look on his face was hard to read; a mixture of sadness, interest, and perhaps mostly nothing at all._

_When he pulled her face against his own; feeling the smoothness of her cheek against his while the water slipped past the seal their different textures made – she let out a heavy sigh at the growing appendage rubbing into her hipbone. It hadn't been long since she'd last thought of this, but for him to show any interest again so soon wasn't something she'd imagined._

"_Charon.", she whispered it – no need for anything louder when the remnants of his ear was so close to her lips._

"_Do you want to do it again?", he asked it like he would another game of cards, but the tenor of his voice didn't stifle any ounce of the desire infiltrating her veins. One of his soft hands slid down to knead a muscle under her shoulder blade – only making her stomach flutter further._

"_Yes", was all she could say really. The heavy flesh between his legs – the same length that was rising and straining almost painfully into her hip was what most of her mind focused on; shameful in a way. A true friend would have seen he was hesitant in some way about this, but that didn't stop her from reaching down between them, and give him a long thick stroke._

* * *

><p>For a moment she stared, but even though his appearance seemed off, she didn't mention it as she went for their bag. The sack was heavy in her lap; brimming with almost everything aside from the fixings for a good meal. She even had a full set of tarnished silverwear – why, or what for, she didn't know yet, but leaving it where she'd found it in a locked cupboard seemed like a silly idea at the time. With nothing but Charon's breathing, the dogs frantic kicking, the drips and the static, she unearthed a tied up deck of cards with a very dull tune on her tongue. A game of cards would bore them to sleep she was certain and if that didn't work she could always read them both articles from a medical journal.<p>

Out the corner of her eye she watched Charon's face loosen further – the always bundled creases lessened into rough skin and healed scabs. One would ascertain that he were merely relaxed, but she knew that rarely happened, even while he slept...or, even after he came. The cave noises – a combination of random and predictable drips, as well as distant echoes of nothingness – wafted into the white noise of the fuzzy radio broadcast while she shuffled the frayed deck of cards in her hands. There was something off, and when she peered up at him she couldn't hold her tongue when he eyes started to water.

"That mold not sitting on your stomach well already?", the tone she used was (if anything) berating, but only to mask the worry she was already feeling. They had a sack of pre-war medical supplies – of which there was bound to be something that could cure him if the inevitable occurred, but the heavy concern was something she both relished and detested. Caring about a person had its downfalls, and this – before her – was one of them.

He didn't answer, but he did turn, look around, and twirl his eyes in wide-looped circles as if he were following something in the air between them. One corner of her mouth twisted down, and her eyes remain steady on the path his own followed, but there was nothing besides crisp cave air – yet, he must have seen something, for his hand shot up a few inches from her face and grabbed something completely invisible.

There was a sense of pride for not having flinched much but a twitch of her nose as he grumbled and brought his closed fist before his face – it opened quickly and his eyes followed something else purely imaginary once more.

"Okay.", she enunciated with eyes disbelieving at the uncharacteristic tilt of his bitten lips. She'd never seen him smile like that, if he ever smiled at all.

It didn't occur to her until he spoke - "These flies are impossible to kill." - that she realized something was indeed wrong, and it was only a matter of a few more untypical words and gestures that finally put two and two together for her.

Charon was hallucinating; hard.

It all seemed fairly child-like in nature until he ripped his combat knife from his thigh – still coated in the now dark-green residue from the fungus – and eyed it against the different births of light with fast and slow tilts of the blade. She knew eating that shit was a bad idea, but she hadn't realized how bad until she was on her feet, backing up from a near seven foot tall ghoul and a searingly sharp blade.

"I'm dying.",he muttered; deadpanned and - if it weren't for the knife - a bit amusing.

The whole turn of events had been slow enough that a more perceptive person would have realized the issue and the solution soon enough to avoid such a dilemma, but with the mild soak of alcohol in her veins and the previously depraved memory of herself and the very ghoul - who was now poising a knife besides her cheek - she apparently was lacking in a few key areas.

The flush of the blade rubbed cold on her cheek – the threat overtly apparent but dimmed since it came from him. Fear didn't really settled into until the edge of the knife came to rest between her moth-eaten shirt sleeve and her hot skin.

"Your hungry.", he breathed out down her face; hot and smelling strangely sweet. The mold had some interesting effects on a ghoul of his size, and just as his blade cut off her sleeve – the fabric flapping down and exposing the top curve of a breast – she couldn't remember exactly how many it was he'd eaten; a few maybe?

"I am", she said; tone soft and easy. She knew how to deal with people when they were like this. Tripping was a term used often enough that she could characterize that strange dance of his pupils as such. Ghouls didn't sweat, she knew this – they panted, and Charon (hunched over her with that serrated knife in the hand that held the ball of her shoulder) was gasping down the side of her face like he'd been sprinting her away from danger.

She could remember a time not too far into their companionship where he'd slammed her out of the range of fire, into a wall where he stood close as he did now; panting with his weapon out at the ready.

She bit in a breath as he gathered her up in his arms; erratic and clumsy, but she kept her lips shut as the blade nicked the back of her elbow. He hefted her half on his chest and half off his shoulder. The rhythmic pounding of her heart palpitated ever few beats as he walked her to the bed rolls and the lantern. From past experiences and wasteland paranoia, she briefly thought he'd throw her down and fuck her – it wouldn't be rape since she'd have him anyway and anytime he'd be willing, but the thought blended in too well with one that wasn't consensual; a memory half-forgotten and usually ignored.

Antic mumblings and breaths were spoken against her side as he circled the band of their gathered things; holding the backs of her thigh and pressing a flat palm between her shoulder blades possessively. The thought occur to her that he was holding her like she'd seen mothers do to their babies when they'd been trying to coax them into sleep – it was a spectacle she'd only seen once in the vault and twice on the outside, but the situation was uncannily similar.

When the tips of his fingers dug past the thinness of her shirt, she opened her mouth to speak, only to have the words come out as a low vocal-pitch when he tossed her back on the bedrolls – the contact took the air out of her lungs.

Once she picked the hair out of her face, she caught a glimpse of him handling the wall to her left; hands running over the slimy wet cave wall like he was seeing if it was soft or hard.

"...hell...", she uttered to herself as she drank in the darkly humorous sight of Charon of all beings feeling up a cave wall; his body pressed close and the same odd mumblings passing over his lips. Aside from the blade still in his hand (glistening off and on) he didn't seem a hindrance to her or himself – still, she silently pull their pack open; gently moving supplies aside until the stained first aid pack appeared past an assortment of ink-less pens and batteries.

She checked on him again, seeing that he'd started digging the tip of his knife into a crevasse; fishing small rocks out. Funny how she decided he needed to be treated only once she saw him ruining his blade, and not when he was threatening it against her face. He'd be annoyed when he came around and realized he'd dulled, or worse: chipped the tip of his combat knife. For something he cleaned and sharpened every night, she couldn't really watch him twist it into a hundred-thousand-year old slab of mineral rock.

"Charon, you still hungry?", she rang out with her fingers still in the large pouch of colored-coated pills and neatly kept syringes. The blue pouch really had a nice assortment of things, most of which she knew nothing about though and there age accounted for little.

Charon hadn't answer, and she'd been too busy trying to read the small labels on the antidotes and adrenal injections to notice his approach – so when he plunked down (height, weight and all) in front of her, she dropped the pouch and felt her heart miss a beat. He stared with wide blank eyes at her; large and tall with his mouth moving around at the jaw as if he were grinding his teeth like a Brahmin.

"Do you feel different right now?", she asked hesitantly; hands perched behind her and body leaned back in a stance that could prove her fear as much as it could her ease given the right or wrong person eyeing her.

"I can hear it when you look at me.", he said it with a straight face; jaw stopped and hands wringing with tension around the thick leather on his knees.

* * *

><p><em>He shuttered out water droplets and hot breath down her neck as she squeezed and twisted her palm over his hard flesh, working her arm snugly between them while his hands kneaded down the meat of her back; growling and huffing in her ear.<em>

"_You sure?", she managed to say as her mouth kissed a patch of spongy muscle on his chest._

"_Yes.", he grunted in her hair; fingers pressing into the planes above her rear._

_So she urged him up on his feet, dragging her hands down his sides and his thigh even though he took a step back as best he could in the tight shower; avoiding the blatant level of his groin to her face. He might have grabbed her hair and pulled her back when she opened her mouth along his scarred length, but once she got a thick lick along the underside of it, he relented with a heavy sigh._

_This kind of thing wasn't something she'd ever done; something that suddenly seemed lucky in a world like this as she ran fingers around the tender girth pulsating softly. What he'd done last night had felt better than a lot of thing had in her life, and the least she could do is try it out on him._

_When she took him in her mouth – hollowing her cheeks – she felt fingers dance around the wet strands of hair on the back of her neck, but only barely before they left completely. He didn't speak; scarcely breathed even as she tested how far back her throat could open and which places were the most sensitive – still though, he didn't make much movement._

_It was hard to figure out what felt good from the noises alone, so when she looked up – eyes wide and mouth still wrapped around his sex – she didn't expect to see the mess he was. A ragged, thick and tense arm stretched over her; bracing against a wall of the shower. His mouth was down and half open; eyes about the same with a hand hovering around her head as if he wanted to grab her, but refused._

_She sucked hard and he shivered, but didn't moan or groan. Eventually, his eyes focused off the distilling air clouding up dimly and caught her unblinking gaze. This time – with eyes keen on her own - she heard him grunt and felt those raw fingers immediately bury themselves in the hair behind her ear. She stared and sucked, licked and bowed down the slick flesh while he panted and played with the wet hairs on her head; both watching the other while the water started running cold between them._

_The flesh under her tongue was thick and oddly soft over the stiffening blood in his erection, but the small nicks of veins were what her tongue sought out time and again – the small ridges pulsated and throbbed in turn with a heart that must have been hammering away. His grip would tighten and loosen sporadically when she ran her teeth along his skin, but that was all._

_She'd seen raiders doing these things, with women and with men – the whole act had looked aggressive and frenzied with heads bobbing and teethed bared, but this was nothing like that. Charon was just as hesitant as he'd been last night; unbridled in a sense but also very careful. The small tugs and restrained noises were just a small part of it, and when she reached up to cup the flesh under his sex, he even warned her before he was spent; tugged her mouth away and allowed her to finish him down her front with the water washing it away._

_The word he muttered was her name and the rasp of his voice molding it did strange things to the gushing heat in her chest. No one had ever sounded as he did now; now as he plucked her up by her arms, pressed her back on the shower wall and rubbed the slippery flesh between her own legs; working her firmly once his thumb ran over the tough nub under her cleft._

"_You don't have to. Its -", she moaned in a breath when his finger slipped inside, " - okay...", but he did and once he hefted her leg up under his arm he was almost rough; teeth scratching on the edge of her jaw and tongue licking up the water running down through her hair. It was the radiation pulling the reaction out of him, she told herself – and when he added a second finger with the first she repeated that excuse again while gasping him name past the spray of the shower._

* * *

><p>"Its not productive.", he said abruptly when he looked down at the hard blue pill between her forefinger and thumb.<p>

"What isn't?", she asked slowly while eyeing the label on the baggy she'd pulled the antidote out of – it wasn't anything pertinent, and her memory was foggy about it's effects. The only thing logical to give him were the charcoal tablets, but that could absorb the radiation he seemed to thrive off of.

It all came down to whether he really needed it or not, and by the looks of the half sleepy stare he was giving every small inch of her body, then he was probably fine. They were safe, and he had yet to show any more violence – if anyone could really call the rubbing of his knife violent.

In essence she'd been more terrified of crippled raiders than when Charon came at her with his blade drawn – if anything the thrill of it was invigorating.

"This feeling. It's normal...not normal.", his eyes roamed like they had before, but they seemed more frantic and unsure, "Everything, throbbing. The rocks...look alive."

"I did say not to eat it. Nothing good for you actually glows...well, not normally.", she muttered; leaving the small stash of charcoal pills beside the humming radio before stuffing the aid-kit back in their bag. He made a hefty growl; similar to something the mutt would have made if it wasn't still kicking dirt on the floor.

"Your not helping.", he sounded irritated even through the spacial high pulsing in his head. The effects seemed to be more forceful than he was probably used to – the constant loosening and tightening of his face and muscles seemed to solidify that notion. It wasn't even the hallucination he hated, she was sure – it was most likely the symptoms in his limbs and chest that made him annoyed. Even near-locked in this cave as they were he refused to relax, and just like that he refused the algae.

"They're magical – like those warlocks in Grognak's adventures – try to ride it out. Enjoy yourself for once...", she kicked back on the cold, hard, and wet ground with arms clasped behind her head. The stalactites dripped small puddles around her hip and elbow with delicate noises that died down once Charon stood to pace around their little camp. He would not enjoy himself and his situation was starting to chew away at the shell she'd built up against it - it'd do no good for her to get nervous. Getting nervous would only make things worse.

"It's not pleasurable.", even past the mind-clogging flora, he still sounded affront that she'd even compare enjoyment with such a sensation.

"Then take these pills by the radio-", she shoved the clunky piece of old technology aside and gathered the pills in her open palm, "-there's no sense in sitting around like this if your miserable – they might make you tired though."

"Anything is better than this.", for a man who was apparently seeing sounds and hearing looks, he sounded only vaguely strained – a testament to how much control he truly had. If she'd been the one experiencing lucidity she may have started pulling her own hair out, shrieking for it to end, or even gutted the dog just to know she was still on Earth.

Charon seemed to pause, but when she rolled an eye over to him he plucked the pills from her hand roughly and proceeded to glare and swallow two of them with the bottle of whiskey from her side. She didn't remember when it was he'd actually taken the bottle off her hip without her knowledge, but the fact only added to his resistance - he was smooth and agile even under the influence. He truly was an enigma of the highest variety, and that thought made her smile through the hidden nerves.

"Get ready to feel dizzy.", she murmured into the side of her arm; staring at the workings of his throat as he swilled up the last of the alcohol – a small trickle of the amber liquid slipping down the side of his mouth and down the cerise muscles along his thick neck. There really wasn't any situation or moment that she didn't find a sight like that at least a little arousing – even just in a clinical-interest sort of way.

"Your finger looks red.", his voice sounded clogged and tired already, but that may have very well been just a symptom of the half liter of booze he'd just ingested.

She pulled the arm from under her head and examined the finger in question – the circle of flesh around the middle joint was swollen and inflamed. It'd been bothering her only recently, but she'd used the digit constantly and the sight wasn't shocking until now; now that she could see it in the light. Yellow dotted under the swollen edges as if the flesh were ready to turn purple – a sign of infection.

"I wouldn't worry about it.", she mumbled with eyes still glued on her distended finger; trying to pass it off as nothing...which it was, she reminded herself. Nothing that a stimpack couldn't cure if the problem persisted; nothing that a distant mind couldn't fix.

A dim grumble resounded as she bent the bloated digit – disapproval she was sure. A small jolt of pain running up to the bed of her finger nail made her pupils dance, but it took her mind off the worry, if not for just a seconds time.

* * *

><p><em>Five months and two weeks after the Vault...<em>

_The blood - caked over her naked skin - cracked; stretching the beaten and bruised flesh underneath whenever she made the most miniscule of movements. Whenever she turned in her hanging cell, whenever she opened her mouth or even felt her body tense at a certain far away scream – the blood cracked and stretched. Filthy was something she wished she was. Compared to the heavy drape of blood, semen, and dried stagnant piss-water they shoved her into, she wished she'd been covered in the more expected layers of the wasteland. Before when she'd sneered at the smell of herself under the beating sun – she now sneered at the luck all of that had truly been._

_Her heart would seize randomly when ever footsteps padded down the hallway under her suspended prison. Another reason not to move was keeping the thick chain looped in her birds-cage from attracting anymore attention - a plan was still in it's earlier stages as she took in every small detail of what her eyes could capture. Somewhere there was a weak point, somewhere there had to be a weapon she could use, and somewhere there was an exit._

_Every other problem she'd found a solution – it had come easily until now._

_A bottle smashed in one of the far rooms dimly, followed by a hard slapping of flesh that sounded more like a fist fight than anything even more disturbing..._

_The horrible cajoles, biting laughs and cries of rape had ended not a few minutes ago, but the weak sounds of conversation still wafted about the conjoined halls and rooms. Voices bounced around in the wet concrete surroundings, making it impossible to discern between the masses, or even tell how many she needed to evade, kill or maim._

_They hadn't raped her like they'd done the other girl brought in with her – why?, she didn't care to question. If it was because she'd been dirtier than the other girl then she thanked the radiation puddle she'd fell in the hour before being captured; if it was because of the fact that she'd pissed herself when they'd kicked her in the gut then she'd pray that it happened again if this situation ever arose once more, which - she promised - it wouldn't if she found a way out. No more would she put her trust in anything even remotely out of the ordinary._

_The raiders – now her captors - had looked like no more than traveling merchants; clothes well kept, in a way, and guns heavy like those the Brotherhood patrolled with, but great disguises had been the only thing they had in common with half-civilized peoples._

_A harsh rattling of her cage – making her gut churn sickly – gave her a brief moment of atrophy as the even more foul sound of a close chuckle marred with the decent of her cage. It was her turn now, she knew it. Desperatly her eyes pounded as her heart did; searching for something (anything) to keep the sick activities of these animals at bay._

_They were hoisting her down, and for a moment she thought she couldn't breathe. A sticky, greasy and almost moldy head of hair was the first thing she noticed as a person, and the more she saw of her grinning captor – the more the bile rose up in her mouth. He was short, thin, and gave her a full-mouthed smile with no more than four teeth; four chipped and blackened teeth, behind lips that looked as though the first layer of dermis had been peeled off that morning. His skin was ravaged by the sun – worse looking than a ghoul even and void of any inner charm the radiation victims had._

The voice coming from his festering hole of a mouth was just as terrible as his appearance and smell, "_Jerry hopes your harder than the last one. Jerry – he wants...hard, girls.", even with his striking lack of vocabulary, she found that the words he managed to say indeed hit a cord; one deep in her gut. Her body imploded in on it's self as if she'd been struck by some horrid malady; eating her from her inside out like little claw-ridden parasites. The feeling of terror was so ripe that her ears didn't pick up on the muted sounds of pain in the other rooms. All her mind could focus on was the horror standing before her, while the man reached one stained hand between his crotch to itch at some venereal disease._

_She watched - petrified - as the disgusting little man shoved an equally worn and skinny key at the keyhole; missing the gap for so long that she'd hoped he'd give up, but that thought seemed to coincide with the lock on the door slipping open as that damn key made it's way in the right spot._

_The fog of his rancid breath was so terrible it traveled a good two feet before hitting her in the face; strong and warm like some condensed creature. If anything, she only wished that she'd found her Father before this sort of thing happened. Dying now seemed like such a kick in the stomach; and dying by these sorts of barbarians was something she couldn't think to describe._

_A filthy hand; smudged with grease, blood and bodily grit reached out inside her cage. Her whole life seemed to whither at the sight of that hand - her stomach dropped, her mouth went sour, and for the briefest of seconds, she thought about banging her head into the metal bars of her cage to see if she could knock herself out quicker than he could grab at her, but that apparently wasn't necessary._

_A figure - just as naked and bloody as she - rounded a corner with slow, sloppy movements; bending from one end to the next as if at any moment the girl would fall, never to get up again, but somehow she managed. The girl – the one she'd seen raped, beaten and drug off for more - held a meated-looking baseball bat at her legs - it wasn't made red, she just put it through the rounds._

_She pulled her eyes from the girl as quickly as she'd looked, only watching her from the blurred extent of her peripheral vision while the ghastly man grabbing for her grinned wide and nastily with eyes wide and excited: savage._

_Her fingers curled around the slick bars against her back, watching with diluted fear as the girl creeping closer became more and more steady in her stride; baseball bat rising quickly in both hands like she was ready to hit the winning home run. There was a sunny-ray of rage in the girl's eyes – she'd killed the other men, she knew it, but the lust for revenge hadn't been abated yet, and only with this kill could the need be sated. Something told her the girl wasn't aiming to save her from a similar fate, just killing those that harmed her, but she stared on in gratitude nonetheless as she watched the murder take place._

_Blood and mayhem in the wasteland had remained cut and dry until this moment - the moment that her eyes honed in almost erotically on the way the man's skull concaved and cracked down between his eyes; blood trickling at first and then gushing and spurting up like a broken pipe of crimson bodily fluid. Up until that second in time she'd done nothing but shoot her enemies down. The whole ordeal of pulling a trigger had at first been as horrendous as it had been exhilarating, but the sight of a human's skull being beaten in on the cold filthy ground was something else entirely._

_She watched - as more an overseeer than a rescue-e or even a victim for that matter - while that bloody and raped girl turned the man's head into a pile of red mash; pulp with only a few hard, sharp pieces and an expose bellied eyeball to give away the fact that it had at once been someones head._

_It was the sound that was the worst - the hard cracking that turned so quickly into a wet slurping and squelching smack._

_The girl didn't say anything once the exertion of sweat started to wash the moistened blood down her body - just gasped, stared and (after a few seconds) dropped that wet bat and walked off. Whatever fates the other men found themselves - she'd never know. She didn't stay to loot even though she'd needed to for days, she didn't grab a weapon even though her life depended on it, and she didn't look twice. She ran out near blind - the true horror's of the wasteland had finally caught up with her._

_Stories didn't do the sick and weariness in her cold veins justice - experience was the only thing that would keep her alive. She could ignore all the pain and the futility of existence as long as she just chocked it all up to a better well played tomorrow._

_Shattered innocence, pride, bones? limbs? - if she lived through it then it would only make her stronger; more resilient against the next turbulent part of her journey. But she would survive, she promised herself she would._

* * *

><p>"How are you feeling?", she whispered out the anxiety to him. It'd been over half an hour and Charon had done nothing but sit in that same bent, crouched and uncomfortable looking position; breathing in and out as if he'd been counting each second that went by like the countdown to some catastrophic bomb.<p>

"Fine.", he said with finality. The tone suggested otherwise, but still the more hesitant portion of her brain said to leave it be; let him retain whatever he thought he was losing by being in this predicament, but she found her body inching and crawling beside him not sooner than he could pin her with a hopeless glare. His clouded eyes looked normal, filled with spite and that strange ripple of upset. Charon may not have said it, but she'd seen that same look before - it was something she'd given herself in mirrors while alone and cold; beaten up by the chores of the world.

Individual control - ironically - must have been as important to him as his contract. Control would have kept him sane in moments of insanity, and even impervious against the worst of commands - but his control had been broken for that thankfully rather brief amount of time.

"I'm still up for roasting the dog by the way.", she murmured while snaking a hand and arm slyly around to hook it up with his, watching his face tighten and relax in the dim light of the lantern. Slowly - and even with a small shake - she noticed his opposite hand reach over and hold her arm in place; rough skin playing sweetly on her damp skin. She almost smile, but he spoke, "I don't have friends, smoothskin, but...you would say that's what I am. You and the dog are friends, not food.", and even though he must have seen the blank look on her face, he rearranged their arms with a grumble and pulled her up against his side a little too tightly.

"Let's starve.", he said; voice with a heavy drawl as it seeped hotly on the top of her head.

"Sure", she couldn't stop from saying it - he was so warm in a world that (despite the heat) was oddly cold, and the hard, rough parts of him around her were like the metal walls she grown up encased by. Safe is what he was, and it was then she realized she might have been a slave to him as opposed to the way this was probably suppose to pan out.

"We'll starve tonight.", and when she managed to toss out the empty pit in her belly, she found it filled in other ways when he tugged her closer; inhaling the scent of her hair and filtering it out down the side of her face.

* * *

><p><em>Three days later...<em>

She lay now, half undressed behind the cover of a marooned boat – as if at one point the dry patch of nothing they had made camp on was once a lake or a river. The lightness of an orgasm he'd given her ten minutes ago still made her lips curl oddly as he yanked and shoved Meatdog around by his fur on the other side of the burning fire.

When she shut her eyes against the elation, Charon made a grunt of strange amusement while the mutt yipped; uncharacteristic of either of them really, but the raw wind of the morning felt too nice on her drying skin to think them strange now. Replaying the previous events from beginning to end was almost much more enjoyable than chastising the way Charon had opted for the dog than her in his after-coitus moments.

He hadn't instigated it yet, but Charon hadn't mopped around guiltily after wards either. She'd kissed him slowly, hoping it'd have lowered his chances of regret; nibbling on his scarred lips until he'd returned the gesture. He'd came with his mouth open between her breasts and his hands hard around her hips, saying nothing bad and nothing good – just silence and even a straight mouth; almost a smile. Even when she'd rolled off his lap to laugh silently in bliss so uncommon outside of sex, he didn't look at her like he'd done the last time – just rose to bring the fire back up and fix his leathers back in place.

Thinking about the pleasure only made her stomach flip smoothly as she spread her thighs indecently against the wind – the recent memory hard to push back for the day ahead.

Only when the light began to grow did she rise to dress herself as Charon watched passively with one arm wringing the mutt around in tight loops at his knees. When she sat down to stare at him past the rippling tips of the fire, he looked away as if he'd never been watching her at all.

They shared silence until the morning light made the tops of the buildings in the distance visible – it was then that she spoke (brushing all content thoughts, brought on by their coupling, to the gusts of wind). The dead raiders they'd killed a couple hours ago lay off about 15 meters away, but the growing brightness drew her eyes directly too them. They were unavoidable.

"Why is it, do you think, the world is the way it is now? Were people always this terrible; always this...selfish? - or did the bombs push everyone to their limits? Damn it all to basic human nature?", she snapped the last twig sharply over her bent knee - the miniscule bits only bringing the fire an inch higher after tossing them in the blaze.

"I don't know, and yes.", Charon spoke with fingers buried in the oily coat of the dog, obviously oblivious or uncaring of the small dried bits of flayed meat and blood from the raiders gluing the dogs hairs together. She could almost hear the strands unsticking as he scratched and pet, much to the beasts perverse enjoyment. The two seemed fond friends; perhaps in the oddest sort of way, but the sight was still somewhat comforting to watch unfold, especially now while the sun was beginning to peak over the horizon; a sordid blaze of green blues and dusky yellows, only growing more intense and then less pronounce as the sun grew closer to breaking.

In the light of the fire and the clearness of the early morning, she allowed a silent smile upon her face as she prodded along the swollen bubble around her finger. The flesh at the sides had turned a deeper shade of purple. The tiny joint was bent askew a few centimeters, making two fingers press together when she curled a loose fist. Seeing the bulbous joint reminded her of the emotions surrounding it; both as dissimilar as night and day.

A sharp bark rushed her stare from her finger to the mutt; tongue hanging out and teeth appearing yellow than normally against the crackling light. A rare sort of amused look graced Charon's face; lips curled on one end and eyes oddly bright. She watched intently - a feeling of warmth, not just from the fire invading her chest - as her ghoul grabbed the dog's open bottom jaw and tugged it almost playfully as the mutts beady eyes glistened with supreme joy. They rough-housed until day break - or as much as one could call what he was doing with just one arm - the rest of him was loose and motionless.

She wasn't sure if it was the sex or something deeper that brought out the less-distant-Charon, but the color looked good on him, and it was harder and harder to look away.

The previous day and recent night had been uneventful. From the throngs of the open wastes to the scattered remains of Paradise Falls, they ran into nothing worthwhile - a few radscorpions here and there, but nothing worth recounting. The stagnant day was in a sense a strange blessing - he wouldn't have admitted it, but since the charcoal he'd been slow and even without her own excuse she couldn't say she was any better.

"How do you feel about having a goal; a destination we're heading towards? It wouldn't be anything serious, but maybe just a…", she paused; staring heatedly past the licking flames at him and the beast, "…a vague direction – like east, or north-east."

"You have a specific place in mind.", a statement; like half the things he said, but this time something about the blank way he said it, as though he were seeing past her fumbled suggestion made her face burn. He wouldn't say no if she'd told him what she'd been thinking, but even she herself wasn't sure it was the right idea.

"I don't know really, but wandering does no good in the end.", she didn't hide the rawness of her voice - the night had been too long for that, and something about his interest in the dog and not her – especially after their intimate moment - hadn't felt great.

She wanted to kill for purpose again, ever since she'd left the Purifier it'd been a distraction. Death and pleasure had found a strange fluidity in each other, and now - with Charon and the looks and the sex that wasn't just sex - she didn't want to enjoy the taking of a life as much as she'd done in the past.

He didn't answer her, but grunted in agreement as he shoved the mutt weakly on it's side as it gave a slopping yip of delectation.

Even if she loathed the beast for frivolous reasons - the sight of Charon (the ghoul behemoth) and the filthy drooling dog playing was a sight that any set of eyes would find pleasurable. Maybe she needed to take a page out Meatdog's book for a change...even if the beast was more of a bitch that anything else.

* * *

><p>Hope this portion of the story was worth the wait. I just bought myself a brand new laptop, so now writing on the go with be simple as apple pie (though good apple pie isn't all that simple). Please, if you have the time, sling me a review to let me know what worked and what didn't - constructive criticism is always appreciated, as well as kudos. Regardless, thanks for those that read, and those that will read the next. :) Much obliged.<p> 


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